Former AC Milan and Holland star Clarence Seedorf has signed a contract to coach former Spanish football league champions Deportivo La Coruna through the end of this season.
Seedorf succeeds Cristobal Parralo, who was fired on Sunday after 18th-place Deportivo endured a 0-5 loss to Real Sociedad, Efe news agency, quoted the La Liga club as saying on Monday.
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Deportivo supporters and reporters gathered at A Coruña’s airport to await Seedorf’s arrival on a flight from Madrid that was delayed two hours by the snowstorm affecting northern Spain.
Club executives held talks with two other candidates over the weekend before settling on the 41-year-old Seedorf, who will the seventh different coach to take charge of Deportivo in the last four years.
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Seedorf, a midfielder, retired in 2014 after 22 years with six different clubs, scoring 99 goals in 640 matches. He remains the only player in the history of the UEFA Champions League to have won the competition with three different clubs — once with Ajax, in 1995, once with Real Madrid, in 1998 and twice with Milan, in 2003 and 2007.
The Suriname-born Seedorf also contributed 11 goals in 87 international appearances for the Netherlands.
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As a coach, he posted a record of 11 wins, two draws and nine losses during a half-season at the helm of AC Milan.
Shenzen chalked up three wins, four draw and six losses during Seedorf’s brief tenure with the Chinese club.