Ronny Deila will be Club Brugge’s trainer from the start of the new season, the Belgians have announced via the official channels. The 47-year-old coach succeeds Scott Parker, who was congé at the beginning of March. Deila comes over from Standard Liège and takes his assistant Efraín Juárez with him. “With Deila, Club brings in a trainer who knows what winning means,” said the Belgians.
Assistant coach Rik De Mil was temporarily in charge of the group after Parker’s departure and can stay on as Deila’s right-hand man. The Belgian will ‘decide in the coming weeks about his future’, Club said in a press release. Goalkeeper coach Wouter Biebauw, video analyst Matthias Bernaert and physical coaches Eddie Rob and Carl Vandenbussche will in any case remain part of Club’s technical staff. Nicky Hayen and Steve Colpaert return as previously agreed to Club NXT, the highest youth team of the Belgians.
Deila was signed to Liege last summer after impressing New York City FC in the MLS for the previous two and a half years and winning the league title there. The Norwegian trainer was at the helm of Celtic between 2014 and 2016, where he won the national championship twice and won the cup once. Deila started his coaching career in his home country at Stromsgodset IF. With that club he also won the national title and the cup.
With the appointment of Deila, Club’s long search for a new trainer has come to an end. Parker was fired after the shocking defeat at Benfica (5-1) in the Champions League and that same evening it was announced that Alfred Schreuder was the main candidate to succeed the Englishman. A day later, however, a line went through Schreuder’s name. “He really wanted to come back a few months ago”, general manager Vincent Mannaert looked back in April. “Bart (Verhaeghe, president of Club, ed.) and I were ready to discuss a return in detail, but Schreuder came up with conditions that immediately closed the door.”