Sure, firing your team’s coach might not seem like the best move to make before a major event, like say the World Cup.

But now that Spain has done just that after Julen Lopetegui took a job with Real Madrid (though he had planned on staying through the tournament), Gerard Pique went back into the American college sports history book to find one example of why the team would be just fine:

The translation?

University of Michigan. Basketball. 1989. NCAA Champion. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. All together, now more than ever.

Pique’s referencing Michigan, which in 1989, fired its coach Bill Frieder in March after it leaked that he was going to take a job with Arizona State. Bo Schembechler, announcing that “A Michigan man will coach Michigan” fired Frieder shortly before the first round of the NCAA tournament.

An assistant named Steve Fisher (who would go on to have his own complicated place in Michigan basketball history) took over and the team won the national title.