They may be two of the most privileged positions in international football, but none of the top coaches are interested. So Spain will now be coached by Julen Lopetegui and England are to be managed by Sam Allardyce. Box-office names they are not.
Lopetegui was unveiled as the successor to Vicente del Bosque on Thursday and will work with players he coached in the youth teams. The appointment makes sense from that point of view, but if you were to draw up a list of the best Spanish coaches, he would be nowhere near the top.
And perhaps a sign of how far down the pecking order he finds himself is the fact that, had he not been recruited by _La Roj_a, he would have been in charge at Wolverhampton Wanderers this summer. "I'm happy and I'm so proud," the 49-year-old told the media during his first appearance.
Allardyce's case is slightly different. The former Bolton, Blackburn, West Ham and Sunderland manager may well be the best English coach out there these days. But that in itself is a damning indictment on the state of the game in a country that invented this sport. Hull boss Steve Bruce was his one real rival for the job because the FA - or so they said, anyway - only wanted an Englishman.
A report in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday had claimed Allardyce was indeed the chosen candidante - but only after Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger had turned down the position. For a manager like Wenger, an elite club side such as the Gunners is much more attractive. And it is the same in Spain and elsewhere.
Antonio Conte was an exception to that rule. The Italian coach led the Azzurri to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016, knocking out a strong Spain side in the last 16, but even he was lured back by club football when Chelsea came calling prior to the tournament and will be replaced in the Italy job by Giampiero Ventura - a 68-year-old whose biggest role in the game up until now was as coach of Torino.
Ventura, like Allardyce, has not won a single trophy in his coaching career. Neither, however, have had a chance at a top club and the new England boss said in 2010: "I'm not suited to Bolton or Blackburn. I would be more suited to Internazionale or Real Madrid. I would win the double or the league every time."
That is a big boast and with more quality players at his disposal than in his club posts, Allardyce will have to walk the walk and not only talk the talk from now on. "There is no bigger job in English football," the 61-year-old said on Friday.
Lopetegui, meanwhile, failed to win anything in two seasons with Porto despite being handed the club's biggest budget ever, but he has won two titles with Spain's youth teams: the Under-19 European Championship in 2012 and the U-21 continental crown the following year.
There is no guarantee that will translate to success with the senior side, of course, but coaches like Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique have no interest at all in taking a national team at this point in their careers - and the same seems to be true of Diego Simeone with Argentina.
Like the finest footballers, all of the best coaches want to be in the Champions League and working with a national team has lost much of its appeal over the past few years. However, for men like Allardyce and Lopetegui, who are a few rungs down the ladder, the England and Spain roles represent a huge opportunity.
And they are still more glamorous than Sunderland and Wolves.
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- Goal