Bernd Schuster, the German coach of Spanish top flight outfit Getafe, said in an interview with sports daily AS on Friday he expected to be installed within days as Fabio Capello's successor at Real Madrid.
"I am sure all will be sorted out next week," said Schuster, 47, a former Real star who also played with distinction in Spain with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
"Angel ( Torres, the Getafe chairman), has made me very happy. He knows I have given my all for Getafe these past two years and he will not stand in the way of me fulfilling my dream. He has behaved like a gentleman and I am sure there will be no problem," Schuster told AS.
Capello was sacked on Thursday despite leading Real to a record 30th league title.
He also won the league in his first one-season spell in charge at the Bernabeu in 1997 but the Real board did not like his sometimes pedestrian style of play.
Fans were also underwhelmed by Capello, despite his landing the club its first silverware since 2003.
Sporting director Predrag Mijatovic said Thursday that Schuster was a candidate but noted he was under contract at Getafe, a modest side just outside Madrid which he took to the Spanish Cup final.
Mijatovic said Capello's successor had to be young and understand the kind of footballing philosophy Real were seeking.
Schuster corresponds perfectly to that description, having spent most of his playing and indeed coaching career in Spain, where he arrived as a young midfielder in 1980 for the start of eight years at Barcelona.
In 13 years in La Liga he won three league titles and six Spanish Cups and then cut his coaching teeth briefly in Germany with former side Cologne before brief spells at Jerez in the Spanish second division, Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk and then Levante back in Spain.
Last week, following the Cup final loss, Torres insisted that " Schuster will be Getafe's coach next season," but all the signs were that Real would get their way and appoint him.
Schuster would be Real's eighth coach since 2003 after two-time Champions League winner Vicente del Bosque, Portugal's Carlos Queiroz, stop-gaps Antonio Camacho and Mariano Garcia Remon, Br azilian Wanderley Luxemburgo, another caretaker in Juan Ramon Lopez Caro and Capello.