Getty Images Sport"I came to remove the fear from the players", an iconic phrase Villarreal's fans will never forget from Spanish coach Marcelino, the man who shaped the club's modern-era history. Al-Ahli's fans are hoping to hear something similar next season.
Press reports have confirmed Marcelino is close to becoming Al-Ahli's new head coach next season. He would succeed German coach Matthias Jaissle, who is closing in on the Newcastle United job.
Marcelino has built a distinguished career in the dugout. His playing days told a different story, cut short as an unheralded midfielder who never made much of a mark on the pitch.
He started out as a playmaker at Sporting Gijon, first with the reserves before earning promotion to the first team in 1985.
Four years on, the Spaniard dropped into the lower divisions, turning out for Racing, Levante and Elche, where he called time on his playing career in 1994.
Retirement came early. At just 28, injury forced Marcelino to hang up his boots, and it was that setback which pushed him into coaching so soon.
Marcelino began his coaching career four years after retiring, at just 32, in the lower divisions of Spanish football. He started with Deportivo Lealtad before returning to where it had all begun, this time as coach of the Sporting Gijon reserve team.
Two years with the reserves followed, from 2001 to 2003. He then took the manager's seat with the first team between 2002 and 2005, but promotion to the Spanish league eluded him.
What he could not achieve with Gijon, he delivered at Recreativo Huelva. Marcelino took charge in 2005 and won promotion in his first season, then finished eighth in La Liga the following campaign.
No Recreativo side had ever finished higher in the Spanish league. The achievement earned Marcelino the award for best coach in the competition for the first time in his career.
A new challenge beckoned at Racing after that historic run with Recreativo. In a single season he steered them to sixth in the Spanish league, their best finish in the competition's history, and into the UEFA Cup.
The travels continued, this time to Real Zaragoza in the second division. Marcelino guided the team to promotion to La Liga and picked up the award for best coach in the competition.
Around 10 years later, in 2019, he claimed the award for best coach in the Spanish league once more, after leading Valencia to the Copa del Rey title.
Marcelino had endured two brief spells with Racing and Sevilla in 2011, but the defining chapter of his career began in January 2013 when he took charge of a Villarreal side struggling in the second division.
Promotion came in his first season. Three top-six finishes followed, along with a run to the Europa League semi-finals in 2015-2016.
Then, in August 2016, came the shock. Just days before the start of the La Liga campaign, Marcelino walked away from all that success, the victim of disagreements with the board over certain decisions.
Seven years passed before he returned. Back at Villarreal in 2023, Marcelino wrote fresh history, guiding the club into the Champions League in two consecutive seasons.
He also became the club's most prolific coach on two counts. Across six years and 298 matches, Marcelino racked up 145 wins, more than any manager in Villarreal's history.
Villarreal repaid him in style. After his departure at the end of last season, the club placed a plaque bearing his name on the walk of honour at the La Cerámica stadium.
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After leaving Villarreal in his first spell there, Marcelino took charge of Valencia in 2017 and stayed until 2019, the year he claimed the award for best coach in the Spanish league for the second time in his career.
Several reasons earned Marcelino that award, the most striking being the way he steered Valencia to the 2019 Copa del Rey title, beating Barcelona in the final.
That historic season should have cemented his place. Instead, Valencia sacked him over a dispute with the club's management about their policy of selling players.
Roughly a year and a half later, in January 2021, Marcelino returned to the touchline through the door of Athletic Bilbao. In only his third match in charge, he led them to the Spanish Super Cup, again at Barcelona's expense.
Both of Marcelino's titles on the pitch, then, came against the same opponent: the Copa del Rey with Valencia in 2019 and the Spanish Super Cup with Athletic Bilbao in 2021.
Across a coaching career spanning nearly 30 years, Marcelino has ventured outside Spain just once. It ended in the worst possible way.
Marseille was the club, the 2023-2024 season the setting. Without question, it proved the low point of his career.
Seven matches. That was all Marcelino lasted at the French club, weathering hostile chants aimed at him and the board, along with threats designed to force him out.
By September 2023, the Spanish coach had announced his resignation as Marseille manager, bringing the curtain down on his first and last stint outside Spain.
