{"id":10128,"date":"2026-05-18T14:40:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=10128"},"modified":"2026-05-18T14:40:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:40:48","slug":"chelsea-name-xabi-alonso-as-head-coach-on-four-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=10128","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea name Xabi Alonso as head coach on four-year deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_79\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Chelsea have officially appointed Xabi Alonso as the club\u2019s new head coach.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The former Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid manager has signed a deal that will begin in July, the club have confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Alonso is set to return to the Premier League after a five-year spell at Liverpool during his playing career.<\/p>\n<p>Since retiring in in 2017, Alonso has built an impressive reputation as a coach, most notably with Leverkusen, who he led to the Bundesliga title in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n<p>Leverkusen had never previously been crowned German champions and completed the Bundesliga\u2019s first-ever unbeaten season in the process.<\/p>\n<p>Alonso said he is delighted to join \u2018one of the biggest clubs in world football\u2019 and is confident he can help a talented squad compete for trophies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChelsea is one of the biggest clubs in world football and it fills me with immense pride to become manager of this great club,\u201d Alonso said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom my conversations with the ownership group and sporting leadership, it is clear we share the same ambition. We want to build a team capable of competing consistently at the highest level and fighting for trophies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is great talent in the squad and huge potential at this football club and it will be my great honour to lead it. Now the focus is on hard work, building the right culture and winning trophies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0Why Xabi Alonso preferred Chelsea to Liverpool<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See more \u2013\u00a0Midfield Magicians: Xabi Alonso, the grand master of 4D chess<br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook | Instagram | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have officially appointed Xabi Alonso as the club\u2019s new head coach. The former Bayer&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}