From the polls to the Athletic bench

The tenant of the Athletic first team bench has always been an important factor when deciding the vote of the rojiblancos members in presidential elections. It is not usual for there to be a consensus around the coach. Fernando García Macua and Juan Carlos Ercoreca, however, ran for the 2007 elections with the same coach: Joaquín Caparrós.

The lawyer from Bilbao won at the polls and the coach from Seville completed his four-year term as coach of Athletic. No one else has done it since. Macua, yes, concurred with Caparrós again as coach in the 2011 elections, but the candidacy of Josu Urrutia, with Bielsa as coach, prevailed at the polls.

The Argentine coach spent two seasons on the bench at the old San Mamés, giving way to Vaverde’s second stage at Athletic, which lasted four years. Txingurri was succeeded by Ziganda as coach, but the now Huesca coach only served the first of the two years he had signed.

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Urrutia then opted to sign Berizzo, but the bet paid off. The then president of the rojiblanco club chose to dismiss the Argentine with the team in the relegation zone and resorted to the services of Gaizka Garitano. The derioatarra completed that season leaving the lions one European crossbar, qualified the team for the Cup final the following season and was dismissed midway through the League the following season. Marcelino, the last coach to have passed through the bench at San Mamés, took over and completed the campaign that has just ended.

As much as there is talk of the division caused by Athletic’s presidential elections in recent years, the outlook was much harsher a few decades ago. Jabo Irureta can attest to this. The irundarra coach ended up resigning with Athletic with a positive in the qualifying table after having lost two consecutive games in San Mamés, having been eliminated in UEFA after an armed robbery in Parma after having left Newcastle in the gutter and of succumbing in the first leg of the Cup at Riazor against Deportivo who, like the Italian team on a continental level, ended up proclaiming themselves champions of the tournament.

Irureta had come to Athletic at the hands of José María Arrate in the 1994 elections. The San Mamés fans, accustomed to Heynckes’ team, did not accept the football offered by the lions nor did they forget what had happened at the polls. Lertxundi, the former president, can also attest to the subsequent effects of the electoral processes on Ibaigane’s chair. The difference is that social networks did not exist then.

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