Rui Vitoria appointed Spartak manager

Spartak Moscow have officially appointed Rui Vitoria as head coach. The 51-year-old Portuguese has signed a contract for two years.

Vitoria's coaching career began in 2002 at the club Vilafranquense, where he had played for many years as a player. After this he gained experience with the Benfica youth team, before making his top-flight coaching debut in 2010 with Pacos de Ferreira, whom he led to the final of the Portuguese League Cup.

His honours include winning the Portugues Cup with Vitória Guimaraes for the first time in the club’s history, before winning two Portuguese Super Cups, the national Cup and the League Cup in charge of Benfica. With the Lisbon giants he reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League after beating Zenit in the last 16.

Until December last year, Vitoria worked in Saudi Arabia where he won the national championship and Super Cup with Al-Nasr, and reached the semi-finals of the Asian Champions League.

His new Spartak coaching staff will also include assistants Arnaldo Teixeira and Sergio Botelho, goalkeeping coach Luis Esteves and fitness coach Paulo Mourau. All four worked with Vitoria at Vitoria Guimaraes, Benfica and Al-Nasr.

Vitoria’s staff have already started working, while the new manager will meet the team in mid-June, when the players will come back from holiday.