Spartak Moscow appoint Italian Carrera as head coach

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Massimo Carrera has been appointed Spartak Moscow head coach on a two-year deal, the Russian Premier League club said on their website (www.spartak.com) on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old Italian, who only joined Spartak last month, took temporary charge of the first team on Aug. 5 after Dmitri Alenichev resigned when they were knocked out of the Europa League by AEK Larnaca in the qualifying rounds.

Alenichev took over as head coach in June, 2015 and steered the club to a fifth-place finish last season but he quit after they slipped to a 2-1 aggregate defeat against AEK.

Spartak are second with seven points from three matches.

(Reporting by Dmitriy Rogovitskiy; editing by Ken Ferris)