after leading benica to their first league title in ten seasons, giovanni trapattoni departed the club for personal reasons. faced with the task of finding a new manager for a second year in a row, luís filipe vieira was quick to choose trapattoni's successor; on the 5 june 2005, he said, "i already know who's the next manager". from the list of available managers, the press speculated on paul le guen, ronald koeman and javier irureta. after a failed approach to le guen, benfica selected koeman as the next manager on 8 june 2005. his assistant would be tonny bruins slot, replacing álvaro magalhães, who left the club after two seasons. later in the month, fernando chalana returned to benfica on a 2-year contract to serve on koeman's technical staff.