Right after finishing his active career in Hungary, he started as a coach in North Macedonia. At Vardar, he first became part of the coaching staff of the women’s team, then also coached the men’s national team for one year before he took over Vardar’s men’s team, and finished this season on a high — winning the EHF Champions League after beating Veszprém in the final.
“This is the biggest trophy you can win, especially when nobody expects you to win this trophy. We had many new players in our squad, so I was really, really proud of my team,” Parrondo says.
The EHF Champions League final in Cologne was Parrondo’s last match as Vardar coach. He took over the Egyptian national team from his former Ciudad Real teammate David Davis – and made history with the ‘Pharaos’, leading them to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics semi-finals as the only African and second non-European team (after Korea in 1988) to achieve the feat.
The stunning run at the Olympics came just a few months after played an epic quarter-final at their home World Championship against Denmark, only losing in a penalty shootout against the eventual gold medallists.
Shortly after the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, Parrondo received a call from Melsungen, which had parted ways with Gudmundur Gudmundsson and wanted to sign Parrondo as his successor.
“When I arrived at Melsungen, we were very far away from our goal to return to international competitions. When you play in the best league of the world, it is really hard to qualify for the European League or even the Champions League. It was a long way, but now we are back,” Parrondo says.
“We were definitely not lucky when Elverum were drawn as our opponents for the qualification, and we had a tough week with a Bundesliga match between both qualifiers, but after some problems in the first half of the first leg, we did our job very well.”