According to Tasnim news agency, Esteghlal Club confirmed that Juan Román Lopes Caro is one of the club’s main options to replace Ricardo Sapinto, and negotiations have been held in this regard.
Lopes Caro started his coaching from the 1995-96 season in the third level of Spanish football and the Los Palacios team, which did not achieve much success in both years. He then managed the Melia team at the same level and failed to bring this team to the second division of Spain. Mallorca’s second team was Lopes’ next destination, and in the two years that he used this coach, he reached the fifth and seventh places in the Spanish League Three table to avoid promotion.
This coach was temporarily in charge of Majorca’s main team in two matches of the second round of the Intertoto Cup, which failed to advance to the next stage with one win and one loss. The bench option of Esteghlal, continuing his adventure, signed a contract with Real Madrid in 2001 and took charge of the second team of this club. At the end of a period that lasted 4.5 years, he lifted the third level championship of Spain and brought Real to the second level. He worked in this team with players like Diego Lopes and Juanfran.
December 4, 2005 can be considered the most important day of Lopes’ life when he became the head coach of the first team of Real Madrid after sacking Wanderley Luxemburgo. During this period, Caro sat on the bench for 33 games and experienced 17 wins, 10 draws and six defeats. The elimination from the European Champions League against Arsenal with Thierry Henry’s magic and the 6-1 defeat against Zaragoza in the FA Cup can be considered the most important events of this year without a trophy for Real Madrid led by Caro.
After accepting the head coach of Racing Santander and ending the cooperation before the start of the season, the former coach of Real Madrid responded positively to Levante’s offer. However, recording four wins, five draws and five defeats caused his dismissal. He then returned to the second level of Spain and helped Celta Vigo to survive in this competition by scoring 26 points from 20 games.
Caro was then transferred to the national level and became the head coach of the Spain under-21 team. Despite qualifying for Euro 2009 with eight wins from eight matches, Spain finished below England and Germany in the group stage and were eliminated at the same stage. Lopes’ first experience outside of Spain did not bring him any success and he was dismissed from his position after winning five defeats out of 13 matches with Vaslui Romania.
After two years away from the bench, Lopes replaced Frank Rijkaard in the Saudi national team in January 2013. In 2013, he failed to lift Saudi Arabia from the group stage of the Persian Gulf Cup and led this team to the runner-up position of the 2014 competition, so that the cooperation between the parties ended very soon. Lopes sat on Oman’s bench for less than a year when he left the Middle East after eight games and only three wins.
Lopes was able to lead Dalian Yifang to the championship position in the Chinese First League (the second level of Chinese football) so that this team could go to the first level of Chinese football. His spell at Dalian came to an end after a year and a month and the Spaniard took charge of Shenzhen to return the team to the Super League. Of course, he was relegated to the Super League a year later due to poor results. He has not had a team in the last four years, and he was mentioned as an option to lead the Iraqi national team, which did not come to fruition.
In his 28 years of coaching, Lopes has only won two championships and it remains to be seen where his negotiations with Esteghlal Club will go.