Robbie Keane will start work right away in his new post as Head Coach of Hungarian giants Ferencváros after he was today unveiled as their new boss.
The Budapest side had been on the lookout for a manager following the decision by their title-winning Dutch coach Pascal Jansen to defect to New York City last month. Keane had been linked with the Ferencvaros post last summer, after the Dubliner left Maccabi Tel Aviv but even though the Hungarian side opted for Jansen at the time, Keane remained on their radar.
And after contract talks were concluded, Keane was today named as the new boss of Hungary’s biggest club.
“We announce the successor to Dutchman Pascal Jansen to lead our 35-time champion and 24-time cup winner team, as the 146-time national team player of the Republic of Ireland Robbie Keane has signed on Monday. The new head coach arrived in Budapest on Sunday evening and will leave on Tuesday to join our team at the training camp in Spain,” the club said today.
The squad are currently on a winter training camp in Murcia, and are due to play German side Preuben Munster in a friendly in Spain on Friday so Keane will now get spend some time with the squad before that match. There is another friendly, against Polish opposition, as part of that Spanish camp on Wednesday of next week.
The Irish Independent understands that Keane’s former international teammate Rory Delap, who was Keane’s assistant in his one-season spell at Maccabi Tel Aviv, will again be part of Keane’s backroom staff.
The domestic league is currently on a winter break but resumes at the end of this month with Ferencvaros in second place, one point behind Puskas Akademia but with a game in hand.
They are also still in European competition, with games against Eintracht Frankfurt (January 23rd) and Troy Parrott’s AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League on the calendar before domestic duties resume. In fact, that game against AZ, on January 30th, will be Keane’s first competitive home match.
Since Hungarian legend Lajos Detari left Ferencvaros in 2012 the club have tended to look abroad for managers, with spells there for coaches like Thomas Doll, Serhii Rebrov, former Russia boss Stanislav Cherchesov, Dejan Stankovic and, most recently, Dutchman Jansen but Keane’s success in winning a league title in Israel with Maccabi in his first season impressed the ambitious owners of Ferencvaros.