Quique Setién facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Quique Setién

Setién in 2010
Personal information
Full name	Enrique Setién Solar
Date of birth	(1958-09-27) 27 September 1958 (age 66)
Place of birth	Santander, Spain
Height	1.82 m (6 ft 0 in)
Position(s)	Central midfielder
Team information
Current team	Beijing Guoan (head coach)
Youth career
	Casablanca
	Perines
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1977–1985	Racing Santander	204	(43)
1985–1988	Atlético Madrid	73	(7)
1988–1992	Logroñés	114	(20)
1992–1996	Racing Santander	124	(25)
1996	Levante	3	(0)
Total		518	(95)
International career
1978–1982	Spain U21	2
1985–1986	Spain	3	(0)
Managerial career
2001–2002	Racing Santander
2003	Poli Ejido
2006	Equatorial Guinea
2007–2008	Logroñés
2009–2015	Lugo
2015–2017	Las Palmas
2017–2019	Betis
2020	Barcelona
2022–2023	Villarreal
2024–	Beijing Guoan
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Enrique "Quique" Setién Solar, born on September 27, 1958, is a Spanish football expert. He used to be a professional football player, playing as a central midfielder. Today, he is the manager of the Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan.

During his playing days, people called him El Maestro, which means "The Master". He was most famous for playing two times with Racing de Santander. He started and ended his 19-year career at this club. He played 374 matches and scored 58 goals in La Liga, which is Spain's top football league. He also played three times for the Spanish national team.

Setién started coaching football teams in 2001. He has managed several clubs, including Racing. From January to August 2020, he was the manager of Barcelona. He left the club after a big 8–2 loss against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League.

Quique Setién's Playing Career

Playing for Clubs

Quique Setién was born in Santander. He began his professional football journey in 1977 with his hometown club, Racing de Santander. In his first time with Racing, he played often but was not always a starting player. He missed the entire 1982–83 season and his team was moved down to a lower league twice.

After that, Setién played for Atlético Madrid for three years. He had two good seasons there. However, he did not play much in his last year after some disagreements with the club's chairman.

In 1988, Setién joined Logroñés. After a slow start, he became very important in helping the team stay in the top league. In 1992, when he was 34, he returned to Racing. He scored 11 goals in his first year back, which was his best record. This helped the team get back into the top league. He played three more years with Racing. He stopped playing football in June 1996, when he was almost 38. His last games were for Levante in a play-off that also ended in promotion.

In 2001, Racing fans voted Setién as their best player ever. He played almost 600 official matches in nearly 20 years. He scored a total of 95 goals in league games.

Playing for Spain

Setién played three times for the Spanish national team. He was chosen for the 1986 FIFA World Cup team. However, he did not play in any matches during the tournament in Mexico. His first game for Spain was on November 20, 1985. It was a friendly match against Austria in Zaragoza, which ended in a 0–0 tie.

Quique Setién's Coaching Career

Starting as a Coach

Setién started his coaching career on October 5, 2001. He took over as manager of Racing after the previous coach was let go. Racing had started the season poorly after being moved down to the Segunda División (second division). Setién helped the team move up from 17th place to second place, which meant they were promoted back to the top league. But he left at the end of the season due to pressure.

For the 2003–04 season, Setién coached Poli Ejido in the second division. He was dismissed on November 17, 2003, because the team was in the relegation zone.

In 2005, Setién became an assistant coach for the Russia national beach soccer team. For three months in 2006, he was in charge of the Equatorial Guinea national team. After that, he moved to another team he used to play for, Logroñes, in the third division. He was removed from his job halfway through the 2007–08 season.

Coaching Lugo

In June 2009, Setién became the coach of Lugo. In his third year, he led the team to be promoted to the second division. This was only the second time in history that Lugo had reached this level.

For the next three years, Lugo managed to stay in the second division. They finished between 11th and 15th place.

Coaching Las Palmas

On October 19, 2015, Setién became the new manager of Las Palmas in the top league. He took over when the team was in the relegation zone. He helped them finish in 11th place in his first season.

On March 18, 2017, Setién announced he would leave the club at the end of the season. This was because of disagreements with the club's board.

Coaching Betis

On May 26, 2017, Setién was appointed manager of Real Betis with a three-year contract. In his first year, he led the team to sixth place. This meant they qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League.

Setién was considered for the Barcelona manager job in January 2019, but it did not happen then. On May 19, 2019, he announced he would leave Betis.

Coaching Barcelona

Setién became the head coach of Barcelona on January 13, 2020. He replaced the previous manager and signed a contract until June 2022. In his first match, six days later, Barcelona won 1–0 at home against Granada.

The team finished the Spanish league in second place, behind Real Madrid. On August 14, 2020, Barcelona lost 8–2 to Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals. This was the first time in 74 years that Barcelona had given up eight goals in a game. It was also their first loss by a six-goal difference since 1951. Setién was officially dismissed three days later. He later said he would take legal action because he felt his contract terms were not respected.

Coaching Villarreal

Setién returned to coaching on October 25, 2022. He took over at Villarreal. He led the team to fifth place in the league, which meant they qualified for the Europa League.

On September 5, 2023, Setién was dismissed from Villarreal due to poor results.

Coaching Beijing Guoan

On December 10, 2024, Setién was appointed as the manager of the Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan.

Quique Setién's Personal Life

Setién's son, Laro, is also a football player and a midfielder. His father-in-law, José Antonio Lozano, played in the Spanish second division in the early 1960s. All three of them played for Racing Santander. Besides Spanish, Quique Setién also speaks English and Italian.

Setién loves playing chess and has a good rating from FIDE, the world chess organization. He has played matches against former world champions Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. The results of these games were not made public. He has said that chess influences his football tactics. He likes his teams to keep the ball a lot and control the middle of the field, just like in chess.

Before becoming Barcelona's manager, Setién lived in Liencres [es], a town near Santander with many cows. He once famously said, "Yesterday I was walking past cows in my home town; today I was at Barcelona's training ground coaching the best players in the world, an enormous club." In April 2020, he talked about winning the league and Champions League titles. He joked, "If it can be both, better. And of course I have dreamed of walking around Liencres with the cows while holding up the Champions League trophy and showing it to them."

Managerial Statistics

Honours and Awards

As a Player

Atlético Madrid

• Supercopa de España: 1985
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup runner-up: 1985–86

As a Manager

Individual Awards

• Chinese Super League Manager of the Month: May 2025, June 2025

See also

In Spanish: Quique Setién para niños