Real Valladolid will present this Tuesday the Uruguayan coach Guillermo Almada Alves as coach of the first team, which this Monday, from early in the morning, has begun its activity with the first medical examinations of the available players, sources from the club have informed EFE.

The sporting director, Víctor Orta will present to the media the coach who will take charge of the team that competes in the second division of Spain, to thus open a new institutional and sporting era after the recent sale of the club to the firm Ignite Sports by its previous owner, Ronaldo Nazario.

His departure from the Tuzos and the arrival in Spain

Guillermo Almada (Montevideo, 1969), who resigned from the Tuzos de Pachuca bench before the Club World Cup being held in the United States, has developed his entire sporting career in Ibero-American football: as a player (1985-2007) and as a coach since 2009 when he took charge of Tacuarembo in his native country.

He replaces his compatriot Gustavo Pezzolano who began the disastrous 2024/2025 campaign at Real Valladolid, which culminated with relegation to the second division and numerous negative records such as the number of defeats and goals conceded, for which he was dismissed last December after seventy games in three seasons.

Pachuca, which he has managed since 2021, has been Guillermo Almada's last destination before beginning his debut in Europe through Spanish football and with a second division club, Real Valladolid, which will begin the new season on August 15 at the Zorrilla Stadium where it will host the newly promoted Ceuta.

Almada, along with some of his collaborators, has been in Valladolid for days and has even allowed himself to be photographed on the streets of the historic center in images that have circulated on social networks.

Almada's agenda for the next few days

After his presentation, he will contact the players before leading the first sessions on the grass of the annexes to the Jose Zorrilla Stadium, expected to start on Wednesday, and to open the first phase of a preseason that will close with a one-week stay in Chile (from July 20 to 27), where they will face Colo-Colo from the capital on two occasions.

The first will be in Concepcion (July 24) and the second in Santiago de Chile (July 27) as the conclusion of that stay before returning to Valladolid to face the two weeks prior to the league debut.

Who is Guillermo Almada?

Almada began his coaching career in 2008 when he took charge of Tacuarembo in his home country for three years before joining River Plate in Montevideo. His only two spells outside of Uruguay were in Ecuador (Barcelona/2015) and Mexico (Santos Laguna/2019 and Pachuca/2021).

In 2023 he was named Mexico's best coach and a year later he won the Concacaf Champions Club title, which gave Pachuca the right to compete in the Club World Cup this July.

As a player, he was a midfielder who began his career in 1985 with Defensor Sporting, where he trained, and which ended in 2007 with Racing de Montevideo. He also had spells in Chilean football (O'Higgins), Colombian football (América de Cali), and Guatemalan football (Aurora), as well as other Uruguayan clubs (Cerro, Huracan, Progreso, Fenix, Tacuarembo, River Plate de Montevideo, and Wanderers).