Real Madrid manager, Zinedine Zidane has won the Miguel Muñoz Trophy for the first time after emerging as La Liga Best Coach in the 2019/20 season.
The French tactician led Les Blancos to their first La Liga title in eight years and his first as manager last season. Spanish newspaper, Marca usually presents the award to the Best coach each season.
Real Madrid clinched their 34th league title on 16 July at the Alfredo Di Stéfano against Villareal after a spectacular run of 10 straight wins to dethrone Barcelona.
Zidane, who shared the prize with current Sevilla coach Julen Lopetegui, is the fourth Real Madrid coach to win it after José Mourinho (2010-11 and 2011-12) and Carlo Ancelotti (2014-15).
Zidane dedicates Miguel Muñoz Trophy to players after breaking Barcelona’s monopoly
Reacting after being handed the trophy, Zidane, who is also a La Liga winner as a player for the same club lauded his players for winning the league.
“The players wanted to play football again, and they did so in a spectacular way. They wanted to finish as LaLiga champions; this award is totally theirs.
“The thing that we have to repeat this season is the effort. All we did was believe in what we were doing, and the rest was the consequence of that. If we give everything out on the pitch, we can achieve anything, because we’re very good,” he said.
Meanwhile, it is not only Zidane that was honoured by the paper, Madrid striker, Karim Benzema also won the player of the season award for his input in helping the Whites to the league win.
As the manager said, such effort that got then ten straight wins from their last 14 in last season is needed. Madrid has been grinding out results recently a few weeks after the job of Zidane looked to be on the line.
After getting a result against Borussia Monchengladbach which made them top their UEFA Champion League, Zidane seems to have found his mojo again. They have won four straight La Liga games against Athletico Madrid, Sevilla, Athletico Bilbao and Eibar to move joint top of the La Liga table with Athletico Madrid.
This has made Zidane express a high level of confidence in his squad recently as he believes they can survive a testing run of games before the end of 2020.
This could be down to the fact that he has enough quality in the starting line up and his bench. For instance, his side looked tired in the closing stages at the Estadio Iprura, making the French boss bring in Marco Asensio and Federico Valverde as late substitutes. That apeared to be the magic as they sealed the win aftre holding off their host who were attacking frequently.
Zidane will have to prove this with a home game against Granada and a trip to Elche to complete the calendar year.
