Prologue: Part Twenty-Seven

And then it was done.

My first season in senior management. A job I took on a whim. A club I have fallen in love with. Eleven wins from sixteen games – a team on the verge of relegation to a team narrowly missing out on the playoffs. The Basque country shaped me as a child but Gernika has shaped me as a manager. I have worked with top quality managers in Switzerland as a youth coach but here, in this moment, I’ve put it all together and created what I want. It feels fantastic.

But, in the same breath. It feels numbing. Sixth place is, quite literally, a dream come true. But, at what cost? We now have ten players contracted to the club for next season and, given our debts, have announced our reversion to semi-professional level. This small town has seen a turn around of epic proportions on the pitch – every attacking statistic improving hugely, every defensive statistic reducing: more goals, more dribbles, more clean sheets. Now, it all has to happen again. But, will it look the same? Less outgoings, more money saved, less men around the training pitch working on my vision. Do I want this? 

I’ve got forty-one days left on my contract but the players are largely away from the club during that time. The Basque country has been my past and my present, but am I becoming too sentimental, too driven in the roots that this wonderful part of the world builds, to want to stay on and help them again?

Prologue: Part Twenty-Eight

I sat down with Aitor Mendizabal just a day after the Ejea result and, together, we put together the article, below. I wanted to leave this season with a clear blueprint in my head – maybe it was me selling me? Maybe it was just me just wrapping up all of the thoughts I’d had across the season – wanting to pay homage to all of those who have deeply inspired me to do what I have done this season?

It made me think. You know what? I’ve got to give it another go. 

One more year. It can’t hurt.

This isn’t about money. This isn’t about fame. Football is a results business. I’d do it for free if it was needed. I have started a project here and I want to continue it. Of course, I’ll have to get that through the president, but Juan is an amicable man. He’ll want to know why it took me so long rather than why I am agreeing to stay on. 

My heritage, my upbringing, my burning passion for this game and this club in this part of the world. It is a match made in heaven.

The Line of Iron: How Iñaki Arriola United Forty Years of Basque Football

By Aitor Mendizabal – Fútbol Táctico Euskadi, June 2026

—

The Inheritor of the Iron Line

When Iñaki Arriola walks into Gernika’s small meeting room, there’s no projector, no slogans – just a magnetic board covered in blue, red, and yellow magnets. “Every magnet,” he says, “is a person. The lines between them are trust.” Arriola, born in Zarautz in 1985, represents a new kind of Basque coach. He didn’t grow up watching Javier Clemente’s Athletic Club. He studied them. VHS tapes, tactical notes, diagrams drawn on squared paper in his father’s garage – that was his education.

“I was obsessed with the distances,” he says, smiling. “Why the back four moved as one, why Sarabia pressed diagonally, why Goikoetxea never broke the line. It wasn’t just effort. It was geometry.”

For Arriola, Basque football is a lineage – one that has evolved, refined, and reinvented itself over decades. His ideas are not imitation; they are translation. Clemente’s walls, Valverde’s calm, Emery’s architecture, and Iraola’s pulse – all live in his Gernika side.

—

The Lineage: From Clemente to Iraola

Javier Clemente (1980s Athletic Club) – Clemente’s Athletic were built on defensive compactness and physical defiance. Two banks of four, aggressive pressing, and a refusal to give space. “Clemente gave us identity,” Arriola says. “He showed that structure could be passion.”

Ernesto Valverde (Athletic Club, Barcelona) – Valverde reinterpreted that identity through patience and control. His football was less volcanic, more intellectual. Pressing became situational, and shape was a weapon. “He taught us how to win without chaos,” says Arriola.

Unai Emery (Sevilla, Villarreal, Aston Villa) – Emery brought engineering to the Basque psyche. His teams build from structure – the 4-4-2 that becomes a 3-2-5, the control of rest defence, the vertical traps. Arriola admits Emery “showed how control could be emotional – how discipline gives freedom.”

Andoni Iraola (Rayo Vallecano, Bournemouth) – Iraola’s pressing football completes the cycle. His “split press” reintroduced aggression into structure – forwards jumping triggers, wide players collapsing into compact blocks. “He gave emotion back to intelligence,” says Arriola. “He’s Clemente for the analytics era.”

—

The Basque Five: The Code Behind the Style

When asked to define Basque football in five attributes, Arriola doesn’t hesitate:

1. Teamwork – “The distance between teammates is everything.”

2. Work Rate – “Pressing is not running; it’s responsibility.”

3. Anticipation – “We defend the next pass, not the current one.”

4. Decision-Making – “Our game is built on seconds – those who think faster, play longer.”

5. Determination – “Every duel is a cultural act.”

They are not traits on a scouting report. For Arriola, they are moral values. “If a player lacks one of these,” he says, “he cannot play Basque football. It’s not about skill; it’s about conviction.”

—

The Tactical Blueprint: 4-4-2 That Becomes 3-2-5

On the chalkboard, Gernika line up in a 4-4-2. But like Emery’s Villarreal or Iraola’s Rayo, the reality is far more fluid. In possession, the system morphs into a 3-2-5, the structure of modern Basque control. Berasaluce, the right-back, tucks inside to form the third centre-back – a quiet sentinel balancing the line. His restraint allows others to play. “He’s not there to overlap,” Arriola explains. “He’s there to anchor.”On the left, Lorente steps forward with the ball, embodying the Pau Torres role from Emery’s Villarreal and Aston Villa sides. He carries with calmness, pulling lines apart, daring forwards to commit. “He plays like a centre-back who’s seen the world,” says assistant coach Dani Fernández. The double pivot of Frúniz and Tame forms the base of control. Frúniz is the guard – a defensive midfielder with pre-emptive instincts. “He plays football in the future,” says Arriola. Beside him, Tame is the conductor. His body shape is always open, his first touch angled to find the far side. “He dictates the rhythm like Parejo under Emery,” says Urrutia. Out wide, Kortazar provides thrust from deep – the vertical outlet when the team needs acceleration. Agirre, on the flank ahead of him, is the playmaking winger, drifting inside into the half-space, connecting lines, and creating overloads. Then comes the front unit – the emotional heart. Morales, the free role, is the team’s conscience. He presses like a forward and links like a ten, blending Raúl García’s intensity with Trejo’s brain. Beside him, Gutiérrez, the wide forward, cuts inside at diagonals, attacking the box’s blind side, moving onto his stronger left foot – the team’s chaos agent. At the top stands Okolo, the channel forward. His job is movement: pressing, dragging, distorting. “He’s our space creator,” says Arriola. “He stretches defences so others can breathe.” Much like Ollie Watkins at Emery’s Villa – his running and off the ball work is often forgotten about.

In Possession (3-2-5)

• Right-Side Stability: Berasaluce’s inside role gives numerical superiority in build-up (3v2).
• Left-Side Progression: Lorente’s’ progressive passes break lines and draw pressure.
• Double Pivot Control: Frúniz stays central, Tame slides into passing lanes, forming a positional seesaw.
• Front Five Balance: Wide wingers stretch; interior forwards overload the box.

Out of Possession (4-4-2)

• The distances shrink, the tempo drops, and Clemente’s shadow appears. 
• Okolo jumps to press the ball-side centre-back; Morales curves his run to block the pivot – the Iraola trigger. 
• Wingers tuck narrow, forcing play outside. 
• The midfield squeezes the half-spaces, creating a defensive funnel. 
• If the ball enters the wide zones, the press collapses – 2v1s, recovery runs, tackles in unison. “We defend the lines, not the ball,” says Frúniz. 
• Arriola calls it collective compression. It’s pressing as architecture – one player jumps, the others reshape the structure instantly.

The Split Press: Iraola’s Modern Legacy

Iraola’s influence is clearest in the split press – a system where one forward presses the centre-back while the other blocks the pivot. Arriola has refined it to suit Gernika’s 4-4-2. Okolo initiates, curving his run to isolate the defender; Morales stays central, closing the passing lane. As the ball travels, the entire block jumps five metres.

“Everyone talks about intensity,” Arriola says. “But intensity without timing is chaos. Pressing is like breathing – it has to be rhythmic.”

In data terms, Gernika’s OPPDA (passes per defensive action) ranks among the highest in the league. But it’s the structure, not the running, that makes it work.

—

The Last Inheritance

When Gernika recover the ball in midfield and the stadium erupts – not from a goal, but from a tackle and counter – it feels timeless. The rhythm of Basque football echoes: intensity, organisation, solidarity. Arriola’s system may use modern terms – “rest defence”, “half-space occupation”, “3-2-5 transitions” – but its soul is old. It’s the soul of men who build before they dream.

“Every Basque coach,” Arriola smiles, “is trying to tell the same story in a different dialect.”

His dialect, forged in data rooms and born from VHS tapes, speaks with precision and heart. The line of iron remains unbroken – only redrawn.