Jose Luis Mendilibar he will not sit on the Ipurua bench next season. The Zaldibar coach had decided to leave the club at the end of this season and the news, advanced by MARCA on May 17, became official this Tuesday. Both parties were aware that the best thing was for a change to take place and have waited until the end of the League to announce it. It is a very thoughtful decision in recent months and not even having achieved permanence would have changed the coach’s idea.
The Biscayan felt that his project in Eibar had finished. The DThe physical and mental exhaustion that the last year and a half of competition has entailed, with a pandemic involved and all the difficulties that this has entailed, have caused it to decide to step aside. In recent years, he had always doubted whether to go through the big door or continue one more season. This course has been clear to him for a long time and now it does put an end to the longest stage of his career on the bench.
Mendilibar closes a six-year stage in the gunsmith team and Eibar wanted to thank him for his work: “Thank you for having been a fundamental protagonist of this wonderful dream.” The Biscayan coach was, along with Cholo Simeone, the coach who had been on a First bench for the longest time. Five loose stays endorse the excellent career of a technician who has made it possible to extend the gunsmith’s dream in the highest category much longer than expected.
Mendilibar is the second coach in the history of Eibar with more official matches. Has dHe has been assigned to the gunsmith team in 248 games and the ninth place he achieved in the 2017-18 campaign is the greatest of the successes he has signed. But above the numbers, the competitive character that he gave the team since his arrival stands out, the ability he had to take away the complexes he had from his first year and have built a team in which everyone went to death with his recognized way of understand football
He leaves with the thorn of not having been able to leave Eibar in First. This season is his first relegation since he became a top-flight coach, although that does not detract from the excellent work he has done in the six years he has been at the club. Toni Ruiz, Iñaki Bea and Josu Anuzita also put an end to their time at the gunsmith club.
The name of the new gunsmith coach will be known in the coming weeks. The fact that has gained strength is José Ángel Ziganda, who will not continue in Oviedo and that right now he is on pole to pick up the baton from Mendilibar.
