Barca appoint Gerardo Martino

Football manager Gerardo Martino Barcelona - Arab Today Argentine coach Gerardo Martino has been named as Barcelona's new boss on a two-year deal, the club confirmed on Tuesday. "FC Barcelona have reached an agreement for the hiring of Gerardo Martino as the new coach of the first team for the next two seasons," said a statement on the club's website. The club had been in search of a new boss since last Friday when Tito Vilanova had to resign due to ongoing health problems. Martino, who hails from Rosario, the same city where Barca star Lionel Messi grew up, recently left Newell's Old Boys despite leading them to the Argentine Clausura title and to the Copa Libertadores semi-finals. Previous to taking over at the Argentine club, the bulk of Martino's managerial experience had been in Paraguay, where he won four domestic championships with Libertad and Cerro Porteno before going on to lead the national side to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 2010 and the Copa America final a year later. Indeed the 50-year-old had been strongly linked with a move to Real Sociedad earlier last month before deciding to stay on to manage Newell's until the end of their Libertadores campaign. Source: AFP