Gipuzkoa is the smallest of Spain’s 50 provinces, a rich, hilly stretch of land in the Basque country between the Bay of Biscay and the French border. Most of its 720,000 inhabitants live in the San Sebastian urban area, one of the most beautiful in Europe.
The province’s leading football team is Real Sociedad, whose manager Imanol Alguacil is from Gipuzkoa, just like his predecessor Asier Garitano. They worked with Xabi Alonso when he was manager of Real Sociedad B. Former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder Alonso is now in charge of Bayer Leverkusen and often linked with a move to England’s Premier League.
If he does move, he will be in familiar company: 20 per cent of the Premier League’s managers are from Gipuzkoa. Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta started out at Antiguoko, a junior club who often practised on San Sebastian’s famous La Concha beach. Alonso also started out there where he played with legendary striker Aritz Aduriz.
Aston Villa’s Unai Emery is also from Gipuzkoa. He too started out at Real Sociedad, as did Wolves manager Julen Lopetegui, who rose to become Spain, and, briefly, Real Madrid manager. The latest Premier League manager from Gipuzkoa is Andoni Iraola, who was announced as the new Bournemouth coach following the parting of ways with Gary O’Neil, who had done an excellent job leading Bournemouth to survival.
Iraola also played for the Antiguoko youth club before joining Athletic Club in Bilbao, where he was in the first team for 12 years. Leeds United tried to sign him in January but he was refused permission from his then club Rayo Vallecano, which he steered to promotion in 2021 before two highly creditable mid-table finishes in La Liga.
All are excellent coaches with testimonies to prove it. They come from an area where, to quote the Catalan coach Manolo Marquez, “Football is a religion”.
“Iraola is very calm during the week and passionate during the game,” says Marquez. “Lopetegui and Unai Emery are absolutely obsessed with football. Obsessed. And I recall visiting Pep Guardiola in Manchester as long ago as 2018 when he told me that both Arteta and Xabi Alonso would become top coaches.”
The Basque area will have four La Liga teams next season in Real Sociedad, Athletic Club, Alaves and Osasuna. Only Madrid, with over twice as many people, can match it.
Tiny Eibar, from a town of just 27,000 in Gipuzkoa, stunned football by establishing themselves as a top-flight team between 2014 and 2021.
They almost made it back for next season but will stay in the second tier where they’ve been joined by another Basque team, Amorebieta-Echano, whose stadium only holds 1,500 and is so small they’ll have to leave to play in the new division. Their coach? He’s from Gipuzkoa, of course.
The Basques have traits for being hard working but Marquez says it’s impossible to suggest there’s such a thing as a Basque style.
“You could say that 30 years ago,” he says. “Physically strong teams, fast. Taking advantage of the tough weather compared to the rest of Spain. The style was almost English. Now, each of those coaches works to very high technical levels. They have all done very well.”