Liverpool hiring Andoni Iraola came as a curveball to some: Xabi Alonso was available for quite a while, after all.
That was the obvious choice, too. The former Liverpool midfielder had been heavily linked to take over from Jurgen Klopp, before Arne Slot was even in the conversation for the job – so when Alonso to Anfield rumours failed to materialise at the end of last season, it was assumed that the Reds would stick it out with Slot. Alonso even moved to Chelsea.
Which made Iraola an interesting hire. On the pitch, yes, he's perfectly suited to the high press that has come to define the red half of Merseyside over the past decade or so. Off the pitch, few have made the connection just yet.
Andoni Iraola didn't just join any big club - Liverpool offer a collective identity that he wants to work under
The Basque played almost his entire career at Athletic Club before sampling the Big Apple with a season at New York City FC – before heading into coaching.
In 2024, FourFourTwo met up with Iraola to talk about his journey from Bilbao to Bournemouth and how he became one of the most exciting young coaches in the world through a very particular pathway.
Athletic, famously, have a very defined identity: their ‘cantera’ policy focuses solely on developing players of Basque origin or from the region. The fanbase at San Mames, meanwhile, are openly politically active, expressing solidarity with international social and political movements. Regardless of whether you're broadly left or right in Bilbao, however, you belong to something bigger.
Rayo Vallecano – who Iraola managed before Bournemouth – are staunchly socialist. The club's prominent ultra group, Los Bukaneros, is explicitly anti-fascist, anti-racist, and pro-workers' rights. In 2014, the club and fanbase aided Carmen Martinez Ayudo, an 85-year-old local woman evicted from her home, flying banners with “The evictions of a sick state, the solidarity of a working-class neighbourhood” at the very next game.
And when FourFourTwo put it to Iraola himself that perhaps a club's identity was integral to him in football, he nodded in agreement. While careful not to use the P-word (that's politics), he made it very clear that he likes to align himself with clubs who passionately believe in something.
“I’d practically been a one-club man as a player: I stayed 16 years at Athletic Club, and I think at Athletic and Rayo Vallecano, the sense of belonging is really important,” Iraola said.
“In the end, I always ask my players to think first collectively, even if I understand that the players want to achieve a lot of things in their careers. If we work as a collective, I will look like a better manager, they will look like a better player and even the players who are playing fewer minutes will look better – because the ones that are playing will look better. I think we have to prioritise the team, and the team always comes first.
“This has always been the case at Bournemouth.”
It was Bill Shankly who once said, “The socialism I believe in is everybody working for each other and having a share in the rewards. That's how I see football, that's how I see life.” Plenty has happened politically, socially and at football grounds – both to Liverpool and within the city – since those words were uttered.
But the feeling of Liverpool's identity has always been palpable. Perhaps nowhere else in the country could a parallel of “Scouse not English” take off. The Reds bought into the collective under Klopp a lot more than some fans have with high-press priests at other clubs. It's perhaps fair to suggest that Liverpool's identity was a big reason for Iraola moving to Anfield.
