Natalia Arroyo will not continue leading Real Sociedad. The Catalan coach and the Gipuzkoan club will separate their paths at the end of the season by mutual agreement, as the Txuri-Urdin entity announced this Wednesday in a statement, putting an end to four successful seasons.
“It has been so beautiful that it has been difficult to say ‘this far’,” Arroyo acknowledges in an emotional farewell video shared by Real Sociedad. In her farewell, the coach thanks the Basque entity for betting on her and giving her her first opportunity at the head of a First Division bench. “I have always felt listened to and they have let me work and grow.”
After four seasons, in which she has managed to lead Real to its best historical position in the League, the second position achieved in her season, and playing in the Champions League for the first time with the txuri-urdin team, the Catalan coach will leave the club next June 30. She will do it with the team in the middle of the table and far from her best figures: “I am leaving proud of how things have gone, but annoyed by this streak of results that are staining everything a little,” she confesses.
Arroyo explains that after several months of conversations with the club, both came to the conclusion that the best thing for everyone was to leave this project “to the next Natalia Arroyo.” She leaves “liberated”, but knowing that it was the best decision: “We had to make this decision, visualize an ending and finish as best as possible, leaving the best memory we can to be fair to what these four years have been like.”
The former Catalan coach in all categories left her career as a sports journalist and television commentator to undertake her first adventure at the head of a club. The Royal Society was the one who opened its doors to her and her results were there from the first year. In her first season they equaled their best position in the table, fifth; In the second they were runners-up in the league, earning a ticket to the Champions League.
Now his future is uncertain: “I’ll see what steps I take.” But surely there will be no shortage of candidates. In fact, the name of Natalia Arroyo has been the first to appear in all the pools for the FC Barcelona bench over the last few years, although it never became a reality and now the club seems to have already chosen the Giráldez’s replacement, Pere Romeu.
On June 18, Giráldez and Arroyo will face each other in Zaragoza in the final of the Copa de la Reina. The last time that both coaches, who shared the bench in the Catalan team, will face each other in League F. At least, for the moment.
Natalia Arroyo thus becomes the fourth F League coach who has already announced her departure at the end of the season after Jonatan Giráldez (FC Barcelona), José Luis Sánchez Vera (Levante) and Cristian Toro (Sevilla).
