Zinedine Zidane Appointed Real Madrid Second Team Coach

Los Blancos legend Zinedine Zidane - who was Carlo Ancelotti's first squad assistant coach this year - will manage Real Madrid Castilla next season.

Real's official website confirms Zizou will start a new stage of his career at Real Madrid: "He will be joined by youth coach Santiago Sánchez and has already started working on future plans for the reserve team squad".

Former Los Blancos hero - who returned to Real four years ago as adviser to the president and last summer became Carlo Ancelotti's assistant - was going to leave the club this summer to take his first head coaching role at his former club Girondins de Bordeaux – however, even though everything was absolutely agreed between both parties, a disagreement over monetary compensation led to the breakdown of the deal.

Once the transfer became truncated, Zidane was clear he wanted to stay at the Santiago Bernabeu and the initial idea was to continue to discharge the same functions. But president Florentino Perez knew Zidane had the desire to take care of a bench and made him an offer to manage Real Madrid Castilla next campaign – in order to gain experience before returning to Madrid to take over as Real's coach.

After Castilla's relegation from the second division last campaign, Zidane's main goal was to return the youth team to La Liga Adelante. The 42-year-old has already shown his ability to make big stars of young talents – he guided Jese Rodriguez to stardom last season and convinced Isco to join Real.