Erol Bulut's coaching staff at Cardiff City has been confirmed, with club legend Sol Bamba officially departing.
Bulut was announced as the new manager more than two weeks ago, however news regarding his backroom team has been slow to nail down.
Dean Whitehead has already confirmed his departure, with the former midfielder linking up with his old boss Valerien Ismael at Watford, however decisions regarding where other coaches would go and who the new additions would be were still up in the air.
Now, the club have confirmed that Nikolaos Karydas will join as Bulut's assistant, as WalesOnline reported yesterday which you can read about here, while Nadir Sonmez also comes on to the staff as a coach.
Karydas, who was Bulut's fitness coach at Gaziantep, was most recently caretaker manager at Greek club Veria NPS for three games at the end of the 2022/23 season. The pair met when Karydas was fitness coach at Olympiacos during Bulut's playing days there.
Sonmez joins the Bluebirds from Fortuna Köln II, where he held the post as assistant manager. The 33-year-old, who has previously worked in the youth setups at Mönchengladbach, Wuppertaler SV and SC Fortuna Cologne, will arrive later this week.
Former Croatia international Mario Galinovic will become the club's new goalkeeping coach. He has previously worked with Panathinaikos, Sparta Prague and PAOK.
Tom Ramasut will continue in his post as first-team coach.
It means club icon Bamba will officially leave the club. A bona fide fan favourite owing to his wonderful time as a player in the Welsh capital, Bamba came back to Cardiff in January alongside Sabri Lamouchi as his old club picked up the phone with an SOS call to save them from Championship relegation.
Bamba wanted to learn his trade and was overjoyed to do it at a club which means so much to him. His will to keep them in the Championship was fuelled by his fantastic relationship with the fan base and his deep love for the club.
However, after securing the club's status as a Championship side, owner Vincent Tan decided against renewing Lamouchi's contract, leaving Bamba in limbo. Bamba was in the mix of names considered to take the reins, but ultimately the club interviewed more than a dozen candidates and opted for former Fenerbahce and Gaziantep manager Bulut.
It is understood that Cardiff would have liked Bamba to stay on as part of the coaching staff, representing that familiarity and bond between the playing staff and the supporters, but the 38-year-old has decided to move on.
He will likely remain with Lamouchi when the Frenchman is handed his next job, having already been touted for a role in France which you can read about here. Bamba was always keen to learn his trade properly before stepping in to become a number one, which he may well return to the capital to do at some point in the future.
Meanwhile, James Wood, who stepped up to become the club's goalkeeping coach after Graham Stack's departure in February, will return to his role within the academy.
