A point has come where you can no longer imagine Eibar Sports Society without José Luis Mendilibar shouting from the Ipurua bench. There are already five seasons of perfect idyll between club and coach and there will be at least six, after the expected renewal announcement with which this Friday the gunsmith team has cheered its fans on the festivity of San Ignacio de Loyola . And after signing, he plays the phrase of every year: Eibar has already made its best signing of the summer.

In normal conditions, the nervousness due to the lack of signature would have persisted until today, the date on which his previous contract ended, extended for a month by the consequences of the pandemic, but trust is such between all parties that the announcement did not passed the process. Finished the League , with a stay without much more trouble in his pocket, everything was settled and the work for the next one began after just a couple of days off.

It is not necessary to go into too much detail about the reason why Eibar continues to count on Mendilibar. There are the numbers. They are five seasons in which the Gipuzkoan team, despite its limitations with respect to most teams in the League, has not even suffered to maintain the category, always ranking between 9th and 14th position . The one that has just ended has surely been the weakest season (that is to say) of the five and Eibar has saved the category with six margin points with the relegation.

Comparison with the past is simply impossible. Until then, Eibar had only been in First season for one season (the one immediately before their arrival) and in it they finished in 18th position, saved in the dispatches by the administrative descent of Elche. It was then, after the break with Gaizka Garitano , that in Ipurua they resorted to Mendilibar, an old acquaintance with whom he had already touched the ascent in 2005.

Of course, at that time, 2015, it was not as easy and safe to bet on 'Mendi' as it seems now. The Biscayan coach arrived after two lousy experiences. In 2013-14, he had only lasted three games with Osasuna after renewing that summer (he had been in Pamplona for two and a half years) without much mutual trust. In 2014-15, Levante had removed him after only eight league games, in which he only managed one victory.

But in Eibar everything was different from the first day. The tandem that he has formed with the sports director, Fran Garagarza , has worked like clockwork, the fruit of mutual trust fueled by the years and of a unitary work model, agreed and accepted by all levels of the club. The coach proposes, the sports director disposes and the noble floor confirms that the numbers fit. And they always fit, despite the enormous limitations that Eibar will always have due to the size of the club, the social mass and the city.

And why does Mendilibar continue? For everything already explained and because it feels that way. He lives with his family in Zaldibar , where he was born, just a 10-minute drive from Ipurua and 25 from Mondragón , where he coaches the team. No one else can offer you this family and personal stability. And beyond that, he fully feels the confidence of a dressing room in which hierarchies and leaderships have been inherited, from the initial Riesgo, Capa and Dani García to the José Ángel, Enrich and Dmitrovic of the next course. And he has a freedom to work that he will hardly find in another club. For this reason, and with the permission of Simeone and his nine seasons at Atlético, there is no such perfect idyll in Spanish football as the one Mendilibar and Eibar have endorsed this Friday.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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