Volos Part Ways With Bratsos and Hire Ex-Villarreal Coach Garrido

By Taki Panos

Some coaching changes take weeks of rumors. Volos needed one evening. Minutes after a 1-0 home defeat to Panathinaikos on Sunday at the Panthessaliko Stadium, the club announced it had parted ways with coach Kostas Bratsos by mutual consent, as Sport24 and Proto Thema reported. By Monday morning the replacement was official: Spanish coach Juan Carlos Garrido, the man who once took Villarreal to a Europa League semifinal, per the club statement carried by Sport24, Fosonline and Novasports.

For readers who do not follow the Greek league week to week, Volos are the Super League club from the port city at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly, and you can read more about the city itself in our Volos guide. The club plays its home games at the Panthessaliko, a big multi-purpose stadium with a running track around the pitch. Keep the phrase playouts in mind, meaning the relegation round at the end of the Greek season, because it comes back into this story in a moment.

This season has been rough even by those standards. Volos sit last in the Super League with zero points after eight rounds, according to in.gr and Proto Thema. On the pitch they have three draws and five defeats, Proto Thema noted, but a three-point deduction has wiped out everything they earned. No wins, no points, and a schedule that does not get any easier. That is the kind of start that usually ends with a press release, and it did.

The deduction is its own story. The Hellenic Football Federation's Ethics Committee took three points from Volos over their playout matches against Panserraikos in the 2024-25 season, Gazzetta and Zougla reported. The committee judged those games to have been manipulated, following findings by the National Platform for Sports Integrity and allegations made by former player Daniel Sundgren, per Zougla and Gazzetta. The Super League applied the penalty to the table straight away, which left Volos on minus one at the time.

Sunday's loss was the last straw. Panathinaikos won 1-0 in the rain, with Cyriel Dessers scoring early in the second half, as in.gr and MEGA reported. We covered that game in our report on how Dessers kept Panathinaikos top. MEGA wrote that the defeat was the trigger for Bratsos's exit, and the timing backs that up. The statement came within hours of the final whistle.

The club's farewell was short. "Volos FC announces the termination of its cooperation with Kostas Bratsos by mutual consent, and thanks him for his contribution to the club and wishes him all the best" (translated from Greek), the statement read, as published by Sport24 and Ta Nea. Bratsos is 49, per Sport24 and Proto Thema. He is a familiar name in Greek football, and losing a job to a winless start is not a verdict on a whole career.

Now to the new man. Garrido was born in Valencia on March 29, 1969, according to the club statement, which Fosonline and Sport24 both published in full. He built his reputation at Villarreal, where the club says he led the team on strong European runs, the biggest being the Europa League semifinals in 2011. Villarreal also finished fourth in La Liga that season and went out of Europe to eventual winners Porto, according to his Wikipedia biography.

His road since then has been long and very international. The club statement lists Club Brugge and Real Betis, then Al Ahly in Egypt, Al Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia, Raja Casablanca in Morocco, where he won a cup, Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates, Castellon in Spain and Al Ittihad. His most recent job was at MC Oran in Algeria, per the same statement, and Sport24 added that he left Oran last February. Plenty of passport stamps. Not many relegation scraps in Greece, though.

The staff around him has a Greek connection that Olympiacos fans will spot right away. Garrido's assistant is Ariel Ibagaza, the Argentine former Olympiacos midfielder, with Javier Oliva joining as goalkeeping coach, per the club statement and Sport24. Sport24 and Scorakias both noted that Ibagaza started his coaching career in the Olympiacos academy and later coached Olympiacos B. The two men know each other from Villarreal, where Ibagaza played for the first team while Garrido was in charge of the reserves, Sport24 reported.

That local knowledge matters more than it sounds. Garrido arrives in the middle of a season, with a squad he did not build and no time for a long preseason. An assistant who already knows the league, the referees, the travel and the opponents can save him weeks. Scorakias made the same point, describing Ibagaza as someone who knows the demands of Greek football well. For a team with zero points, weeks are exactly what Volos do not have.

My take: this is a bold hire and a sensible one. Garrido has coached big clubs and big games, and the Villarreal years were genuinely impressive. The worry is that his last decade has been a string of short spells in very different leagues, and survival in Greece is its own craft. Still, Volos needed a jolt, not a gentle reset. With a three-point penalty already on the books, they cannot afford a slow adjustment. The new coach gets a clean slate, but not a lot of patience.

Next up, Volos travel to face Atromitos on Monday, November 2, at 18:00 Athens time, according to in.gr and NewsDesk. Atromitos are second from bottom, per in.gr, so Garrido's first game is a direct battle with the team just above his. For more on Greek clubs, coaches and athletes at home and abroad, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. New coach, same mission. Get off zero.

Sources: PAE Volos, Sport24, Proto Thema, Fosonline, Novasports, Sportdog, Scorakias, Ta Nea, in.gr, MEGA, Gazzetta, Zougla, NewsDesk, Wikipedia.

Image: Panthessaliko Stadium in Volos by Pavlos1988, via Wikimedia Commons (attribution license).