Apoel appoint Been as new manager

Champions Apoel confirmed the appointed on Friday of Dutchman Mario Been as their new manager just 24 hours after announcing the departure of Thomas Christiansen.

Last season, the 53-year- old Been was at Turkish side Fenerbahce as assistant coach to another Dutchman, the experienced and much travelled Dick Advocaat, who also left the Turkish side to take up the managerial post of the Dutch national side for a third time.

Mario Been began his coaching career in 2005 as coach of Dutch side Excelsior and managed to promote them to the Eredivisie (Dutch first division) in his first and only season at the club.

After a brief stint as assistant coach for Trinidad and Tobago 2006 World Cup team he moved to NEC Nijmegen where he stayed for three seasons. His final season at the club proved to be his most successful as NEC succeeded in progressing to the knock out stages of the Uefa Cup.

He joined Feyenoord in the summer of 2009 where he achieved his highest finish (4th) before moving to Genk a couple of years later.

At Genk he won his only piece of silverware, the Belgian Cup in May 2013.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.