New Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola has turned former club Rayo Vallecano into an established La Liga side.
After Andoni Iraola had masterminded Rayo Vallecano’s first win over Barcelona in 19 years, the upstart coach was asked if he wanted to work in the Premier League.
“I’d love to because now it’s the best league in the world,” he said. “But I’m conscious I’ve just started and I have to prove myself a lot more as a coach.”
Eighteen months on and that day has arrived, with Iraola signing a two-year deal with Bournemouth following the expiry of his contract with the La Liga outfit.
The 40-year-old’s opportunity comes after the shock sacking of Gary O’Neil, seven months after he was made the club’s permanent boss and helped them to Premier League safety.
But the Cherries’ new head coach is an ambitious young thinker who is at the forefront of modern tactics and always looking for new ways to improve.
Proving his worth with smaller clubs
Iraola has a history of overachieving everywhere he has been, beginning with his playing career.
He spent 15 years with Athletic Bilbao, the club who famously only pick players with ties to the Basque Country. In his four seasons as captain, the club reached two Copa del Rey finals, a Europa League final and qualified for the Champions League.
In his first venture into management with AEK Larnaca, Iraola led the Cypriot side to qualify for the Europa League group stage for only the second time.
At little-known Spanish second division side Mirandes, he steered a team destined for relegation to a mid-table finish – as well as leading them to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, knocking out La Liga heavyweights Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal.
Expectations were similarly low when he took charge of Rayo, but he inspired them to promotion via the play-offs, overcoming a 2-1 home defeat by Girona to win the second leg 2-0 despite playing most of the second half with 10 men.
Rayo, who hail from the fiercely-proud working-class neighbourhood of Vallecas in Madrid, have one of the most passionate fanbases in Spain, but are one of La Liga’s worst-run clubs.
Their stadium has no wifi in the press area and, until recently, had no tap water in the bathrooms. The club still have no online ticketing service, leading to thousands of fans queuing overnight last year to secure season tickets.
Despite the infrastructure crumbling around them, Rayo are now established in La Liga and finished 11th last season – even pushing for European football earlier in the campaign.
And that is all down to Iraola.
Pressing with purpose
Iraola’s Rayo had a reputation of being one of the most effective pressing teams in Spain, playing with a high block and forcing teams into errors in dangerous areas.
When the season paused for the World Cup, Rayo were ranked second in La Liga in terms of balls recovered per match, while they ranked third in terms of winning the ball the highest distance up the pitch and were fourth in recovering the ball in the opposition’s half. Their season did tail off in the latter part of the campaign.
“If we only dedicate ourselves to defending and counter-attacking when we can, I think we won’t stay up because if a rival is able to get on top of you they end up creating chances and scoring and overcoming you,” Iraola said in 2021.
“You can’t have just one version, you have to adapt to your rival and that’s what we try to do.”
This ambitious, yet flexible, style of play has seen Rayo pull off some remarkable results in the biggest matches. They beat La Liga champions Real Madrid this season as well as Sevilla and Villarreal, while avoiding defeat to Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. Last season they did the double over Barcelona for the first time in their history.
Friends in high places
Before joining Bilbao’s youth academy, Iraola got his football education at the renowned Basque club Antiguoko alongside Xabi Alonso, Mikel Arteta and future Athletic team-mate Aritz Aduriz.
Although he spent the bulk of his career with Bilbao he got to work under top coaches such as Marcelo Bielsa, who led the team to two finals in 2012, and future Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde.
But it was when he left the club in 2015 to see out his career at New York City that he truly got to rub shoulders with the game’s elite, playing in a team containing Frank Lampard, Andrea Pirlo and David Villa, and managed by Patrick Vieira.
“In terms of the transition I was making from player to coach, it was a very good experience for me,” recalled Iraola, who won the first of seven caps for Spain in 2008.
“A chance to experience a very different dressing room, people from different cultures in different moments of their careers.”
Iraola has continued to network since becoming a coach, remaining in close contact with Alonso.
Two years ago he also got to know Eddie Howe when Newcastle’s ex-Bournemouth manager was on sabbatical, inviting him to Madrid to watch his Rayo team train and “exchange ideas, especially on how to set up against the biggest teams”.