Bravery. It is the recurring theme in conversations with those who have worked with Andoni Iraola at close quarters and the thing, they say, that sets him apart. It was evident in the manner his Bournemouth side illuminated the Premier League.
Liverpool’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, has been here before. This time, though, rather than asking Iraola to replace Gary O’Neil and inherit a team that scrambled to safety, the challenge is to recondition one of the biggest clubs on the planet and help them rediscover the swagger that made them champions.
Arne Slot ultimately paid the price for a meek title defence. Bournemouth simply did not know how to leave quietly under Iraola. Well, barring his first nine winless games in charge, a bruising start that these days is hard to comprehend. Iraola will be the first to recognise Liverpool are unlikely to be quite so forgiving if they have to wait three months to win a Premier League game next season.
“It has been hell of a ride,” Iraola said, addressing Bournemouth’s fans after the club qualified for Europe for the first time. He alluded to that barren run, November fast approaching. “We didn’t start well and, probably, you were thinking: ‘Who the fuck is this guy?’”
“This guy” has established himself as arguably the hottest head coach on the market and is fresh from leading Bournemouth to another record-breaking season. Iraola’s approach has been the envy of the rest of the Premier League for some time, his body of work across the past three seasons a triumph for coaching. Together with his staff, he has polished countless players, schooling them in aggression and recovery runs, elevating many into different footballing levels, none more so than Antoine Semenyo, who arrived from Bristol City as a raw talent. Marcos Senesi, available on a free this summer, is another example, while James Hill is the latest player to make others sit up and take note, not least staff at England.
Hughes pushed Iraola’s case at Bournemouth having watched his endearing Rayo Vallecano side excel after promotion to La Liga and then convinced him to put his imprint on a team that had just finished 15th, five points above the dotted line. “The first thing from the club was more than [about] the result but changing the style: changing the approach, being more offensive, more proactive, playing with no fear,” Iraola said of Bournemouth’s plan.
To that end, the 43-year-old appears to be the perfect candidate to restore the personality lacking at Liverpool in recent months. Bournemouth were superbly watchable under Iraola, who has long thought the best form of defence is attack. “When 10 players are behind the ball, I don’t feel very comfortable,” he said at the end of his first season. Take their home win over Fulham last October. They trailed 1-0 on 78 minutes. At that point Iraola withdrew Senesi, a centre-back, and Tyler Adams, a defensive midfielder, and introduced attack-minded players in Ryan Christie, another player transformed by Iraola, and Ben Gannon-Doak. Bournemouth levelled almost immediately and won 3-1.
It was a similar story the previous week at Elland Road, where Eli Junior Kroupi rescued a point in second-half stoppage time. That night Bournemouth finished with two out-and-out defenders on the pitch. In his first season, they beat Luton 4-3 despite trailing 3-0 at half-time and in his second, at Everton, Bournemouth scored three goals after the 86th minute to win 3-2. “We put Dango [Ouattara] at left-back, but he was playing everywhere but left-back,” Iraola said.
A senior member of staff at Bournemouth says: “Andoni’s idea is to win every game – and that gives you a real platform and identity. The way he uses substitutions … very rarely has he not brought on almost every attacker at his disposal with enough time to affect a game. He wants freshness to keep the rhythm and tempo the same as when the match started. If he has players to bring on and keep the level high, it is the perfect scenario for him – you can never say he’s not trying to win every game. Andoni’s style lends itself to entertainment.”
Funnily enough, it was after a stoppage-time victory against Liverpool in January this year, in which they led 2-0 and won 3-2, when Iraola conceded his side had learned the art of picking their moments. “Normally we go full gas from the beginning and try to go until the end,” he said.
It is a message he relayed as Bournemouth went unbeaten across the second round of fixtures against teams, an achievement that gave him immense satisfaction and only enhanced his reputation. He told his players to value every point during a run of six draws in seven matches.
A summer of change at Anfield is unlikely to bother Iraola, who, while frustrated privately, seamlessly absorbed the sales of more than £250m of talent across last season. Bournemouth even avoided defeat after selling Semenyo to Manchester City in January, having allowed Illia Zabarnyi, Dean Huijsen and Milos Kerkez to depart for Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Liverpool respectively last summer. At the end of Iraola’s first season, Dominic Solanke was sold for a then club record £65m fee. Now Iraola is accountable for the bigger valuations on the heads of Alex Scott, Kroupi and Rayan, all of whom have flourished this season.
Iraola once made light of links to Real Madrid, suggesting he had little interest in massaging the egos of household names, but do not be fooled by his warm next-door-neighbour charm.
After training he enjoyed playing football trivia with his analysis staff and last season volunteered to run the line at his daughter’s under-11s match in Dorset. He is fascinated by culture and travel, be it the Sandbanks ferry or the Shinkansen. But he is also intelligent, demanding and ruthless, days off for his squad at a premium. As a player, he lived elite standards across 16 years at an institution in Athletic Bilbao, his home town club, before hanging up his boots alongside Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo at New York City FC. As a coach, the Basque’s next step was never going to be dull.