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The Moscow club playing in the Russian championship has fired the strategist from Italy Nevio Scala, and instead invited Latvian national team coach Aleksandrs Starkov to the position of the team's head coach.
The 49-year-old Starkov, who led Latvia to the Euro 2004 tournament, also coached the Riga club, but agreed to move to Moscow and help "Spartak" return to the elite of Russian teams.
The coach signed a two-year contract and will be officially presented on September 9th, debuting in a match against "CSKA" just two days later. However, Starkov is preparing to continue working with the Latvian national team at least until the end of the year.
This summer, "Spartak" gained fame in Europe with its record purchases in July - defenders Nemanja Vidic, Martin Jiranek, Dmitri Alenichev returned from "Porto," €16 million spent on acquiring Argentinians Clemente Rodriguez and Fernando Cavenaghi, and Russian youth national team forward Nikita Bazhenov also joined the team.
However, under Scala's coaching, "Spartak" played very inconsistently and unsuccessfully, lingering at the bottom of the standings for a long time. Now in the "Premier" league, "Spartak" is 12 points behind the leader, whom they defeated 3-1 in weekend matches.
