Belgium Appoints Domenico Tedesco As Head Coach

Former Schalke, Spartak Moscow, and RB Leipzig manager Domenico Tedesco has been named Belgium’s head coach.

Domenico Tedesco, 37-year-old German citizen of Italian descent, signed a contract with Belgium that will keep him with the team until the end of the 2024 European Championship.

He succeeds Roberto Martinez, who left his position as manager of Belgium after six years following Belgium’s World Cup group-stage loss in Qatar.

“It is a great honor to be the new head coach of Belgium,” Tedesco said after the country announced his appointment.

“I’m really looking forward to the task and I’m extremely motivated. I had a very good feeling right from the first conversation.”

Tedesco’s first match in charge will be against Sweden on March 24 in a Euro 2024 qualifying match.

Who is Domenico Tedesco?

After a quiet playing career in the lower echelons of German football, Tedesco began coaching the Stuttgart and Hoffenheim youth teams when he was 31 years old.

He briefly took his first managerial post with the lower division team Erzgebirge Aue before joining Schalke ahead of the 2017–18 season.

He led them to a second-place finish in the Bundesliga during his first season in charge, but he was fired in March 2019 after going seven games without a victory, which included a 7-0 Champions League loss to Manchester City.

He then spent two years at Spartak Moscow before joining RB Leipzig in December 2021. Last season, Leipzig won the German Cup and advanced to the semifinals of the Europa League. However, Tedesco was fired in September after the 2022–23 season got off to a shaky start.

Since then, he has remained jobless until Belgium announced his appointment today, February 8, 2023.