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"The day was long for him, but that always happens when a game is played at ten o'clock at night. But he was not nervous, at all, just excited. A lot. And in the game you already saw him, like a veteran. that this boy sometimes looks like ice. " This is someone very close to

Julen Agirrezabala

(Rentería, 2000), who last Monday worried about the boy's emotional state hours before marking a historic milestone, being the youngest goalkeeper to defend Athletic's goal in three decades, since

Kike Burgos

in 1991.

Later, "you already saw it", the boy corresponded in a remarkable way in the Martínez Valero de Elche to the confidence granted by

Marcelino

. In the first minute he saved a point-blank shot from Bigas and in the final stretch he stretched until he almost touched the crossbar to prevent

Tete Morente

from giving the victory to the people of Elche, being the most outstanding man of the gray premiere (0-0) of the Athletic in this League. «It was good, very focused. It is not easy to make your debut on matchday one, especially if you are a young goalkeeper. I am very satisfied with him, the truth, "praised Marcelino, who has bet on him to the detriment of

Jokin Ezkieta

while

Unai Simón

enjoys his vacation after chaining the Eurocup and the Olympic Games.

When the team's starting goalkeeper returns, perhaps next week, Agirrezabala is called to return to the subsidiary, which plays in the First RFEF, but in the meantime Athletic's goal is his. And today it will premiere it in San Mamés, in the first game with an audience since before the pandemic. “He is aware of this circumstance, he has discussed it with the coach and it is not going to go to his head, at all. In a subsidiary there are always players who believe that, as they have been told since childhood that they are very good, they already know everything. Julen is the opposite ”, analyzes

Dani Aranzubia

, former Athletic goalkeeper and current Bilbao Athletic goalkeeper coach.

Those who know the boy agree to describe him as discreet, calm, simple and humble.

On the personal side, almost a carbon copy of Simón, his predecessor in that infinite factory of goalkeepers that is Lezama in recent years:

Aitor, Kepa, Remiro

... «And it is a sponge, it absorbs everything you say to it and asks you specific aspects to try to improve.

Besides being very good, he has an extraordinary predisposition to learn and an extraordinary capacity for work ”, praises Aranzubia, the coach who has worked with him for the last three seasons.

The former Athletic, Deportivo and Atlético goalkeeper defines him as a goalkeeper "with a very high level of concentration that makes him make very few mistakes, very fast and safe in the air game."

The greatest room for improvement, says his teacher, is in the game with his feet.

Agirrezabala arrived relatively late in Lezama, already in the youth category, after training at the Antiguoko San Sebastian, from where

José Mari Amorrortu

signed him

.

Long before, his father Juanjo already boasted of a goalkeeper son in the corridors of the Basque Parliament, where he served as a member of parliament for Eusko Alkartasuna -party today integrated into EH Bildu- between 2010 and 2016 before resuming his post as an Education official and leaving the active politics.

A shared flat

The boy has been burning stages very quickly, generating great expectations in Athletic and also in the RFEF, which has him on their radar for the next sub'21 list. "It is not like

Kepa

,

Remiro

or

Simón

, whom they pointed out as stars since childhood," they point out from their environment. "I have not had the luck to train those three, but I do not know if they had a performance with the subsidiary at the level that Julen had last year," replies Aranzubia. He astonished since his debut in Florida against Portugalete, covering the loss due to the covid of the until then owner

Ander Iru

-his father Aitor, goalkeeping coach of the first team, tested positive-, although he only ended up playing 14 games, partly due to a muscle injury that kept him from the last month and a half of competition.

The boy lived in the residence for soccer players that Athletic has in Derio until a year ago, when he moved to an apartment near Lezama along with his teammates

Jaso, Diarra and Prados,

who has also done the preseason with the first team .

He combines his incipient professional career in football -he renewed in March until 2025- with the studies of Industrial Engineering -he is in the second year- at the San Mamés campus of the University of the Basque Country, a few meters from the field where tonight , against Barça, will play for the first time.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Athletic Bilbao

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