Wolves moved a step closer to preserving their top flight status for another season with a 1-0 win over Aston Villa on Saturday.
The Molineux Stadium outfit bounced back from last week's disappointing 6-0 loss at Brighton and Hove Albion to move ten points clear of the relegation zone.
Lopetegui took over in November as a replacement for Bruno Lage with Wolves in the relegation zone.
Lopetegui was sacked by Sevilla in October after three years in charge during which he won the Europa League in his first season in charge.
Sevilla also qualified for the Champions League in all his three full campaigns at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan.
“It was one of the biggest challenges of my life, as a coach. It has been my most difficult achievement as a coach, much more difficult than (winning) the Europa League and putting Sevilla in the Champions League,” said the manager, who celebrated vigorously at full time.
“It was a very bad situation. A lot of people called me, ‘you are crazy, why do you go there?’
“It’s very important points for us. To arrive at 40 points, it’s not mathematic but we are very close to our aim. I’m very happy for the club, fans, players. We arrived here in December with 10 points at the bottom.
“Today I showed more emotion, I am human. We’ve suffered a lot.”
