It is possible that it is not always clear what Athletic is or what it represents in today’s intricate, globalized and flawed football, but the rojiblanco club is clear about what it wants to be. The Basque team wants to be like Iribar. The legendary goalkeeper turns 80, having become the most faithful incarnation of what the Bilbao club represents for its fans. A living myth that the club cares for with devotion with the objective, perhaps somewhat idealistic, of helping to record the essences and red-and-white values ??on the skin of the puppies that travel from Lezama to San Mamés.
Athletic wanted to celebrate José Ángel Iribar’s 80th birthday with various initiatives, including the exhibition of his mythical shirt, along with other historical club shirts, the future placement of a statue next to San Mamés or an endearing chat with Andoni Zubizarreta.
The meeting with his successor in the red and white goal is eloquent of the admiration that the Txopo came to generate among several generations of fans. Zubizarreta talks about how he wanted to wear black to imitate him or about his ‘persecutions’ in the games played every summer in Zarautz. “I would go all over the field to be behind you,” he says. In other interviews, Zubi has explained that “being like Iribar” was really his great sporting dream. “He wanted to be the Iribar of the 80s and 90s”, hence his initial anger when Athletic transferred him to FC Barcelona in 1986.
Zubizarreta’s words are actually a reflection of the experiences of any rojiblanco fan who followed the Zarautz goalkeeper during his 614 games defending the Athletic goal, between 1962, when he replaced Carmelo Cedrún, and 1980, the year in which he hung up the boots.
Curiously, Iribar only won two Copas del Rey with Athletic, and collected runners-up in the League, Cup and even UEFA. In just five seasons at Athletic, Zubizarreta won more titles: two Leagues, one Cup and one Super Cup.
This detail, however, only increases Iribar’s role as a legend who embodies what Athletic is or wants to be: since he could have earned more money and titles abroad, he opted to stay at home. She is the one club man par excellence in the history of Athletic, a merit that the club now rewards with an annual recognition and that has been extended to women’s football with the One Club Woman Award.
Iribar was also international with the Spanish team on 49 occasions, defending his goal in La Roja’s first international title: the 1964 Euro Cup.
After leaving the rojiblanca goal, he trained for four years in the lower categories of Lezama, and made the leap to the first team in the 1986/1987 season. The team finished in the middle of the table. Iribar realized that it was not his thing and discreetly moved away.
The simplicity and discretion of the Txopo is another of the aspects that Zubi highlights in his tribute to Iribar: “He is a reference on the field, but also in football and in life. It is something that goes beyond. It acquires another dimension that transcends football”. Another rojiblanco myth like Telmo Zarra would say that “as an athlete he was number 1”, but that he stayed “with the person”: “The goodness that emanated has been picked up by the Athletic players”.
Perhaps for this reason, after more than a decade as goalkeeping coach, the club made Iribar, in 2001, its institutional representative. A kind of ambassador who would accompany Athletic in all its matches, also when traveling.
The club had celebrated its centenary -1997/1998 season- with a runner-up, but this sport had already gotten out of hand. Iribar would be the reference in which to look at oneself in the midst of a battle against the current in which it seemed essential not to lose the north.
The Zarautz goalkeeper has held that position ever since, displaying his know-how, humility and commitment to the club. When Kepa Arrizabalaga was rained with offers from the greats of Europe, the club’s board pulled Iribar to try to convince a goalkeeper with whom he had some similarities. They both come from coastal towns, they come from Basque families, they met spectacular conditions and shared some ways under sticks.
The football that Txopo experienced, however, has little to do with the current one. Arrizabalaga did not want to be the new Iribar and flew to Chelsea, where after many ups and downs he has established himself as the starting goal.
That loss, however, left a lesson: Athletic is above any name, except perhaps that of Iribar. A boy three years younger than Arrizabalaga did not take long to dazzle in the rojiblanca goal and even advanced him as a candidate to defend the goal of La Roja, where he is indisputable today. Unai Simón has made it clear that he would like to be something like the Iribar of this beginning of the century. “Whenever Athletic wants me, I’ll stay here”, he has repeated on more than one occasion.
A couple of years ago, Simón lifted one of the two Super Cups that Athletic has won in recent times. The rojiblanco club, however, resists what has been its favorite title throughout history: the Copa del Rey. In the last decade he has collected troubles in successive finals of the K.O. tournament. Tonight he has a new opportunity to qualify for a final. Julen Agirrezabala will be under the sticks, the one chosen by Valverde for the Cup and the last pearl of Lezama’s inexhaustible quarry of goalkeepers.
Iribar has mentioned that winning the Cup is today his great desire in sports. Personally, he is guaranteed the infinite affection of the rojiblanca fans and of a club that wants to be like him. Sober, competitive, honest and humble. This week he synthesized his feelings in an interview with the newspaper El Correo: “I will never cease to be surprised by so much affection and recognition.”