season, when the team finished in 14th position in La Liga. Bulgarian forward Luboslav Penev joined the club in 1989, as Valencia aimed to consolidate their place in La Liga. For the 1988-89 La Liga season Valencia finished third, which would signal their competitiveness going into the 1990s. 1990s: Re-emergence In the 1989-90 La Liga season Valencia finished runner-up to Real Madrid, and thus qualifying for the UEFA Cup. Guus Hiddink was appointed as head coach in the 1991–92 season, and the club finished fourth in the League and reached the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey. In 1992, Valencia CF officially became a Sporting Limited Company, and retained Hiddink as their coach until 1993. Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, fresh from winning the 1994 FIFA World Cup with the Brazil national team, became manager at Mestalla in 1994. Parreira immediately signed Spanish goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta, Russian forward Oleg Salenko, and Predrag Mijatović, but failed to produce results expected of him. He was replaced by new coach José Manuel Rielo. The club's earlier successes continued to elude it, although it was not short of top coaching staff like Luis Aragonés and Jorge Valdano, as well as foreign star forwards like Brazilian Romário, Claudio López, Ariel Ortega from Argentina, and Adrian Ilie from Romania. In the 1995-96 La Liga season, Valencia finished second to Atletico Madrid but were unable to capture the title after a close fought race. Valencia would struggle for the next two seasons but the 1998-99 La Liga season would signal the start of one of Valencia's most successful periods in their history, they won their first trophy in nineteen years by winning the 1998-99 Copa del Rey under Claudio Ranieri and also qualifying for the UEFA Champions League. 2000s: Valencia returns to the top of Spanish and European football Valencia started the 1999–00 season by winning another title, the Spanish Super Cup, beating FC Barcelona. Valencia finished third in the league, four points behind the champions Deportivo de La Coruña and level on points with second placed Barça. But the biggest success was in the UEFA Champions League; for the first time in its history, Valencia reached the European Cup final. However, in the final played in Paris on 24 May 2000, Real Madrid beat Valencia 3–0. It was also Claudio López's farewell, as he had agreed to sign for the Italian side Lazio, also leaving was