Luis Aragonés (born July 28, 1938 in Hortaleza, Madrid) is a former Spanish footballer and the current coach of the Spanish national team.

Aragonés was born during the Spanish Civil War. As a player he has played for a variety of clubs, such as Real Betis, Oviedo and Recreativo, but it is for the time he spent with Atlético Madrid that Aragonés is best remembered. Aragonés joined Atlético in 1964 and stayed with them until "retiring" in 1974. During his time at the club he gained the nickname "Zapatones" ("big boots"). His speciality was scoring free kicks, and in the 1969-70 season won the title of main goalscorer in the League.

Curiously, after deciding to "hang up his boots" and end his career as a player in 1974, Aragonés was made the Atlético coach almost overnight. As coach he soon earned himself the new nickname "The Wise Man of Hortaleza".

In 1986 Aragonés was struck with a strange mental illness kept him away from football for a while, but he did return to Atlético and also went on to manage many other teams including FC Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia, Espanyol, Real Betis, Oviedo and Real Mallorca.

In 2004 Luis Aragonés was chosen as manager of the Spanish national team, a position he had previously turned down, following the poor results of the team in Euro 2004 under Iñaki Saez .

One of the many "characters" of Spanish football, Aragonés is often referred to in the press and by the public by his first name alone, and any article in the Spanish sporting papers referring to "Luis" - bereft of a surname - will doubtlessly refer to the colourful if controversial "colchonero"

Over the years Aragonés has earned a reputation for being a no-nonsense coach with a bit of a short temper, and also for being a bit of a "bocazas"("bigmouth").

This reputation was further enhanced when, in 2004, a Spanish television crew recorded Aragonés trying to motivate Arsenal's José Antonio Reyes during a training session for the Spanish national team. Luis made reference to Reyes' Arsenal team-mate Thierry Henry using language that was interpreted as offensive and racist, especially when the footage was broadcast in the UK. British reporters were stunned when there was no call made for the coach's resignation after what appeared to be such a racist remark.

When Spain played England in a friendly match at Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu stadium, the atmosphere was anything but friendly. The match itself was disappointing on many levels, an aggressive (dirty) England team were beaten by a superior (but hardly brilliant) Spain, but more depressing antics were heard from the Spanish terraces. Whenever black England players touched the ball, a number of Spanish fans would burst into audible "monkey chants". Many people both in Britain and Spain considered that Aragonés and his inflammatory remarks (or the reaction to them in the British media) had sparked this embarrassing incident.

Although the chanting was greeted with astonishment by British television match commentators, the Spanish broadcast of the game ignored the incident completely.

The following day the entire British press (not just the Aragonés-baiting tabloids) expressed outrage at the behaviour of what appeared to be thousands of Spanish supporters, and even Tony Blair made his disgust felt. In Spain leading sports paper Marca also expressed a desire to fight racism in football, but meanwhile ordinary Spaniards felt slightly irritated that Britain was seemingly meddling in what they considered to be a domestic problem. Some also thought that as both London and Madrid were potential candidates for the 2012 Summer Olympics, Blair was trying to eliminate one of London's main rivals.

Surprisingly, Luis Aragonés has so far maintained an uncharacteristically democratic silence on this matter.

External links

• Cultural divide at the heart of race row
• John Carlin gives his view on the controversy
• Spanish National Football Team official site (in Spanish)
• Official Site for 2006 World Cup