No envy, no secrets: How Spain’s Gipuzkoa became football coaching hotbed

BARCELONA — Premier League heavyweights Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea clash this week with an unlikely thread linking them – the men in charge all hail from the small Basque province of Gipuzkoa.

Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool host Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea in the League Cup on Oct 28, and then Mikel Arteta’s English champions Arsenal on Nov 1 in the Premier League.

Unai Emery, a fourth Premier League coach from Gipuzkoa, takes Aston Villa to face giants Barcelona on Nov 3 in the Champions League.

So how did Spain’s smallest province, of just 1,980sqkm, with a population of around 730,000, produce 20% of the Premier League’s coaches?

A good starting point is one man, who mentored them all but, unlike Alonso or Arteta, is little known outside of the region – 80-year-old Mikel Etxarri.

“A wise man and a master of football, the teacher of teachers,” Josu Zubia Ramos, the Gipuzkoa football federation’s director of coaching, told AFP.

Etxarri, whom the federation’s coaching school is named after, has worked tirelessly for over half a century to spread his ideas.

“We Basque coaches have been fortunate to have a very strong bond between us,” Etxarri told AFP, days after he was honoured for his career at a friendly between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao in October.

“I think we’ve been lucky enough to live professional football without being professionals in that sense, without showing that passion for money, but rather a passion for knowledge.”

Once, when asked about why coaches from the region were so successful, Arteta highlighted the “passion” of his people and “the education we all got”.

An education which began as kids. Arteta, Iraola and Alonso all played in the same midfield aged eight – for youth football club Antiguoko Kirol Elkartea, in San Sebastian.

Their shirts hang in the club offices, with the coaches never forgetting their roots.

Current Arsenal midfielder Martin Zubimendi is another Antiguoko graduate.

Overcoming limited resources

Historically, Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao have provided Basque football’s core.

Athletic, based in neighbouring Bizkaia, still operates its famous local player policy, while Real Sociedad abandoned its own restrictions on signing players from outside the region in 1989, but their academy remains an important source.

The pathway from academy to first team seems clearer than at other clubs, with players focused on how to compete for their local team, and give back afterwards.

Their fans expect success despite their limited resources compared to giants Real Madrid and Barcelona. Some of that gap is made up for in work rate and competitive spirit.

Both teams have in recent years won the Copa del Rey and competed in the Champions League.

Good coaching produces better players, players who understand the game deeply can become coaches themselves, and those coaches pass on their ideas – a “virtuous cycle”.

“There’s no envy – I don’t see envy in the way people move – what I see is that people want to perform, they want knowledge, they want information. And that’s the space we all operate in,” continued Etxarri.

Another recurring theme is a culture of high standards and self-improvement.

“I think we have a very strong, very high idea of performance, of demands, and of hard work, right? That’s because in any field, not just football, the Basque coach is demanding of himself,” added Etxarri.

“Take my own case as an example – I’ve gone more than 60 years in a row without missing a single year.”

Etxarri signed Alonso from Antiguoko in 1999 as Real Sociedad sporting director, and he also coached Eibar and the Basque national team.

The region has its own language, Euskara, and it is not just football where Gipuzkoans excel – San Sebastian boasts the world’s highest concentration of Michelin-starred restaurants per capita.

In the wet and cloudy Basque country, there is a strong outdoor sporting tradition. In Gipuzkoa, youngsters under 10 undertake multiple disciplines, rather than specialising in one.

Local sports such as stone-lifting and wood-cutting remain part of the culture.

“(Success is) tied a bit to the local culture, to Basque culture, Gipuzkoan culture, to how our society is, to teamwork, to how club culture has been lived over the years, to how we identify with a project when we get involved and wear a badge on our chest,” explained Zubia Ramos.

“We throw ourselves into it as if we had started our careers there or had been born there.

“England has quite a lot in common with us – a bit in terms of climate – but above all in terms of the philosophy of how football is lived there, which is similar to Gipuzkoa.”

500 coaches

Many coaches gain licences in Gipuzkoa. Will the province continue to provide?

“Look, right now our coaching school is going through a really good spell,” Zubia Ramos said.

“We have more enrolments than ever. For such a small population... this season we have more than 500 coaches enrolled in our school.

“What does that mean? It means there’s a real interest in education, in self-improvement... I see how excited our coaches are about working.”

The numbers suggest the pipeline is unlikely to dry up, with the next Arteta, Alonso or Iraola likely sitting in one of those classrooms right now. AFP