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elmaestrostan · 7 months ago

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@protect-daniel-james ahh, just remembered I meant to try and do this the other day. If you haven’t jumped the paywall already here’s that adorable Andoni interview from The Times:

Andoni Iraola: Noir novels, beach football and life in top flight

An hour into our conversation, in his open manner, with his easy smile, Andoni Iraola says something I’ve never heard before. “I suffered more as a player than as a manager,” he admits. It’s startling. In my 28 years of interviewing football people, managers have only said the very opposite.

But Iraola is differently wired; a relaxed and road-less-travelled guy. He was the boy raised in a Basque hotbed of the game, whose family actually weren’t that into football; the young man who embarked on a law degree because he didn’t envisage a sporting career.

If he wasn’t a manager he reckons he would be running a bookshop. “I have read all of Murakami,” he tells me. Mike Bassett, he is not.

His wife and children aren’t football fans either; they don’t come to the stadium, watch games or talk football at home. “I open the door and sometimes they don’t even know who I’ve been playing against,” he grins. “For me, that is very valuable.”

His alternative ways are powering a revolution at Bournemouth, where he has instilled belief that a small team can play as high and intensely and boldly as any big one. Those qualities had Rayo Vallecano and Mirandés, the underdog Spanish sides he coached, reaching beyond their expected limits. His Rayo beat Barcelona and Real Madrid, his Mirandés reached the Spanish Cup semi-finals for only the second time in their near 100-year history.

Lack of fear is key to his rise. Iraola, 41, had it from his first (and successful) management posting, in Cyprus with AEK Larnaca. “You can only learn by making mistakes and I wasn’t afraid of them because I wasn’t clear coaching was my future,” he says. “My attitude was, ‘Let’s try — if it works, it works’. Things went from one adventure to another adventure, and here we are.”

His parents still work where they’ve always worked and where they met: in the offices of a company which sells marble in Usurbil, a town of 5,000 near San Sebastián. An only child who excelled at school, they encouraged his studies and he was three years into a law degree at university before giving up because he was starting every week for Athletic Bilbao in La Liga and his football schedule made it difficult enough to get to classes, let alone undertake the work placement in a legal practice his degree required.

It hadn’t dawned that he might be good enough for a playing career until he was 16 or 17. As a boy, he played on San Sebastián’s famous La Concha beach with Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso and then for the same youth club, Antiguoko. From kicking a ball on the sands as children, the three have grown up to be among the best young coaches in the world. How? Iraola shrugs. “I always say football-wise, when we were young, Mikel was the best, but overall none of us were great athletes and all of us had to use our understanding of the game to be successful, even as players,” he says.

We talk about what he learned from a playing career that encompassed more than 500 games for Athletic Bilbao, where he was their right back and captain, a year in midfield for New York City FC, and seven caps for Spain — hard won, in a period (2008-11) his country were world and European champions.

Even training with that squad (“nobody ever lost the ball!”) was an education in what the highest football standards look like. In New York, where the manager was Patrick Vieira, fresh from five years playing and coaching with Manchester City, he learned the concepts of positional play.

At Athletic he was exposed to some significant managers, including Marcelo Bielsa and Javier Clemente, but the biggest influence was Ernesto Valverde. “I had him at all the levels,” Iraola says. “When I went to Athletic Club at 16, he was my first coach. He was my coach in the second team and the guy who put me in the first team. Then at the end of my career, my coach when he came back from Barcelona.

“His style is the club’s style. Athletic Club is the most English team in La Liga. We like to attack fast, use the width of the pitch, overlaps, a lot of crosses, high press. And that is how I have learned to play.”

From long ago, he was drawn to England. He loved visiting for mini-breaks — London, Manchester or wherever there were good flights from Bilbao. He knew plenty about Bournemouth. “Eddie Howe visited when I was at Rayo and it was a club I had already studied for set pieces — they were pretty famous for those [under Howe], for their offensive routines,” he says. “But only after I arrived [in June] did I analyse the players, the area.”

Bournemouth made a bold decision to replace Gary O’Neil, a clearly talented upcoming manager, who performed wonders in salvaging their 2022-23 season and was popular with media and fans. The owner Bill Foley, chief executive Neill Blake and technical director Richard Hughes just believed the opportunity to hire Iraola — further along in his upward trajectory than O’Neil — was too big to pass up.

His brief? “The club was coming from a very successful two seasons,” he says. “First season, promoted. Second season, you keep your spot in the Premier League. Changing coaches wasn’t an easy decision to make. They were talking to me because of how we played in Rayo and wanted to implement the things we were doing in Bournemouth.

“I think those things are pretty clear. We like to play in a high rhythm, to be as vertical as we can whenever we recover the ball and try to play in the opposition half.

“The players, now with all the information [out there], already before I arrived knew my ideas. The culture is different [in England] and sometimes we’ve had to adapt to each other and it’s been a process. Training sessions, I take them myself. I always say I am more of a coach than a manager.”

After nine games, Bournemouth were second bottom and yet to win. With difficult opening fixtures he and the club expected a tricky start, but scrutiny was mounting. Iraola found himself topping that pernicious betting market — “next manager to be sacked”.

Did he have doubts? “A lot of times,” he says. “I always say intelligent people have doubts. Otherwise, you don’t make questions to yourself. There were moments I was watching the players and they were trying, they were doing all the things we were telling them [and still losing].

“I remember the game against Spurs [a 2-0 home defeat in August]. For me, we played really well and got them in difficult situations, but they had [James] Maddison, [Yves] Bissouma, [Destiny] Udogie, making amazing plays from very disadvantaged positions. And you say, ‘Woah, we’re doing what we want to do, we’re getting them into the places we want, and even then they’re finding ways to get out and counter’.

“It was the moment I said, ‘Oof, we have to be really clinical if we want to compete in this league’. But also, ‘This is why I am here’. Because you want to face the best coaches in the world, the best players in the world.”

Perhaps the lowest point was game 11: a 6-1 defeat away to Manchester City. Iraola changed from his standard 4-2-3-1 to 5-4-1 and learned a valuable lesson. “I didn’t like that game. Even in the first 30 minutes when we didn’t concede, we were very passive. Very low. It’s not the way we want to play.

“I talked to Pep [Guardiola] after the game and I should have played one midfielder doing the role of a defender. Because the message for the team was maybe not the correct thing. I thought we needed five in the last line to match the [attacking formation] City use, but I should have used a midfielder getting lower rather than a defender — the message would have seemed more positive to the players, even if we took the same positions.”

Bournemouth won the next match, against Howe’s Newcastle United, sparking a run that found them top of the Premier League form table, with 19 points from seven games, going into the new year. “I was lucky because the players kept pushing and believing and you could see that when it wasn’t working, it wasn’t because they weren’t giving their part,” he says. “That meant I had to improve on the tactical side. I’m thankful for the players.”

What did he do? “Fixed small details . . . sometimes at this level it’s just a question of changing a position two or three metres and things start to click.”

And the biggest difference? “I think we’ve changed not so much our style or our offensive volume, we’ve improved defensively. Especially when defending lower and defending crosses and set pieces. We’ve improved how we defend in our box, we’re better at defending one-on-one situations, at forcing the opposition onto their weaker side, blocking crosses, blocking shots, going to the second balls. It is work on the training ground on small basics that were costing us a lot.”

Two players have been crucial. Dominic Solanke and Ryan Christie — whose move from No 10 to a deeper position suddenly balanced the team. “I’m sure every coach who has had him loved Ryan because he understands not only his position, but what the team needs to do and, playing lower, he’s able to organise,” Iraola says. “He doesn’t look very strong, but wins the ball because he’s very good at reading situations.

“Dominic? He has all the qualities. He is unique as a No 9. He can play in a low block because he is fast enough for all the counters, and he can play in a very offensive team because he’s good enough in the box. And out of possession he’s the first one that gives the intensity to the press.”

Both fit Iraola’s philosophy that modern footballers have to be “complete”. “I think we demand nowadays everything from the players,” he says. “You can’t have a No 9, any more, who scores but doesn’t press, and even the keeper has to be complete.

“I have always loved gegenpressing [counterpressing] and the German coaches. The Bundesliga is where the idea players have to be complete started, because coaches were very demanding out of possession.”

Some of his principles are, indeed, very like Jürgen Klopp’s. Like an avowed preference for “chaos over organisation” and love of lightning attacking. “It’s a matter of how much do you want to risk the ball. I tell players whenever you recover it, your first look has to be not even to the No 9, but the ’keeper. Can you score?”

He seems to share Klopp’s worldview that football is the “most important of the least important things” and his ability to switch off from it belies the ferocious intellect and seriousness he brings when at work. A chat about statistics, for instance, shows how deeply and originally he thinks about things. “I like a lot of stats, but don’t show the players too much,” he says. “You should choose the three or four things that are most important to the game and remember sometimes they mislead you and that, always, every stat has a story behind it.

“xG [expected goals]? I use it but think it has to improve. Because it only takes into account the shots. Sometimes there is a big, massive chance, where you go against the ’keeper one-against-one, the ’keeper takes the ball from you and this is ‘xG zero’. So, for one game, it can be misleading. After 38 games, yes, normally it is a reflection, but you have to read more than the xG.”

In their 3-0 away defeat of Manchester United, Bournemouth covered more than 115km as a team. That’s quite a lot, I say. “Maybe too much! More important than the total distance are the expensive metres, the high-speed running,” Iraola says.

“They are expensive because not everybody is able to give you a lot and those metres are what make the difference. Sometimes you run a lot because you’re not seeing the ball and your total distance is high because you’re not playing well. Whereas normally, when you’re playing well, you’re having more high-speed metres than the opposition.”

When he came home from Old Trafford his wife, son (who is three) and daughter (who is eight) did expect a good mood. They know enough about football to know hammering United, as manager of Bournemouth, is a decent result.

“A few weeks before, we played in Manchester and lost 6-1 and the kids were thinking, ‘No, not another 6-1!’ so they were pleased,” he says. “Usually, they know our result, but not how it has gone and the question is, ‘You played well?’ and what they are really asking is, ‘Are you happy or not happy?’ ”

Their real interests are school, toys, games, Disney stuff. They’re normal kids. On days off, he likes nothing better than family trips exploring outdoor corners of Dorset. Like any Basque, he loves scenery and the sea.

Books? “I always liked to read. When you’re a player you have a lot of time travelling, and reading is good relaxation. Now I’m a manager, I’m reading less than ever. It’s impossible. I don’t have time.

“Normally, I read novels, noir novels. Detectives. I loved The Alienist by Caleb Carr when I was younger and the Kurt Wallander books are among my favourites. Many I read are Spanish, but the American writer, Don Winslow, is very good. Also, James Ellroy and Jo Nesbo.

“Noir novels are easy to read. They’re fast and you finish them quickly. I try to mix them with something more difficult. [Haruki] Murakami is not easy, but I love him — 700 pages and he’s talking about dreams . . . but I’ve been to Japan on holiday and I could understand him better.”

The return match with Spurs on Sunday is a good opportunity to gauge how far Bournemouth have come. Perhaps Ange Postecoglou is another of Iraola’s kinsmen. Like the Australian, he takes jobs without bringing assistants with him (they can’t protect you; you live and die by results anyway, is his take) and “as a football fan I love Tottenham’s style”.

Like Postecoglou he leads without ego and without that sense, which many managers project, of the job being burdensome. I ask about career plans and Iraola just smiles. “I don’t really know. I don’t like to do plans because it doesn’t make sense as a coach. You have a bad run, your situation changes so quickly.

“I think . . . I want to prove myself. ‘Let’s see if I’m able to do this’. But it’s more about challenging yourself than anything else. There might be a moment when I find I’m not good enough for this level. It can happen. And for sure it will happen one day. But until then, I want to see how far I can arrive.”

#andoni iraola #Ummm that photo from his playing days 🥵

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bigmacdaddio · 2 years ago

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Generation of 27

The Generation of '27 (Spanish: Generación del 27) was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first formal meeting took place in Seville in 1927 to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of the baroque poet Luis de Góngora. Writers and intellectuals paid homage at the Ateneo de Sevilla, which retrospectively became the foundational act of the movement.

Terminology:

The Generation of '27 has also been called, with lesser success, "Generation of the Dictatorship", "Generation of the Republic", "Generation Guillén-Lorca" (Guillén being its oldest author and Lorca its youngest), "Generation of 1925" (average publishing date of the first book of each author), "Generation of Avant-Gardes", "Generation of Friendship", etc. According to Petersen, "generation group" or a "constellation" are better terms which are not so much historically restricted as "generation".

Aesthetic style:

The Generation of '27 cannot be neatly categorized stylistically because of the wide variety of genres and styles cultivated by its members. Some members, such as Jorge Guillén, wrote in a style that has been loosely called jubilant and joyous and celebrated the instant, others, such as Rafael Alberti, underwent a poetic evolution that led him from youthful poetry of a more romantic vein to later politically-engaged verses.

The group tried to bridge the gap between Spanish popular culture and folklore, classical literary tradition and European avant-gardes. It evolved from pure poetry, which emphasized music in poetry, in the vein of Baudelaire, to Futurism, Cubism, Ultraistand Creationism, to become influenced by Surrealism and finally to disperse in interior and exterior exile following the Civil Warand World War II, which are sometimes gathered by historians under the term of the "European Civil War". The Generation of '27 made a frequent use of visionary images, free verses and the so-called impure poetry, supported by Pablo Neruda.

Members:

In a restrictive sense, the Generation of '27 refers to ten authors, Jorge Guillén, Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca, Dámaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego, Luis Cernuda, Vicente Aleixandre, Manuel Altolaguirre and Emilio Prados. However, many others were in their orbit, some older authors such as Fernando Villalón, José Moreno Villa or León Felipe, and other younger authors such as Miguel Hernández. Others have been forgotten by the critics, such as Juan Larrea, Pepe Alameda, Mauricio Bacarisse, Juan José Domenchina, José María Hinojosa, José Bergamín or Juan Gil-Albert. There is also the "Other generation of '27", a term coined by José López Rubio, formed by himself and humorist disciples of Ramón Gómez de la Serna, including: Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Edgar Neville, Miguel Mihura and Antonio de Lara, "Tono", writers who would integrate after the Civil War (1936–39) the editing board of La Codorniz.

Furthermore, the Generation of '27, as clearly reflected in the literary press of the period, was not exclusively restricted to poets, including artists such as Luis Buñuel, the caricaturist K-Hito, the surrealist painters Salvador Dalí and Óscar Domínguez, the painter and sculptor Maruja Mallo, as well as Benjamín Palencia, Gregorio Prieto, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz and Gabriel García Maroto, the toreros Ignacio Sánchez Mejías and Jesús Bal y Gay, musicologists and composers belonging to the Group of Eight, including Bal y Gay, Ernesto Halffter and his brother Rodolfo Halffter, Juan José Mantecón, Julián Bautista, Fernando Remacha, Rosa García Ascot, Salvador Bacarisse and Gustavo Pittaluga. There was also the Catalan Group who presented themselves in 1931 under the name of Grupo de Artistas Catalanes Independientes, including Roberto Gerhard, Baltasar Samper, Manuel Blancafort, Ricard Lamote de Grignon, Eduardo Toldrá and Federico Mompou.

Finally, not all literary works were written in Spanish: Salvador Dalí and Óscar Domínguez also wrote in French. Foreigners such as the Chilean poets Pablo Neruda and Vicente Huidobro, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, and the Franco-Spanish painter Francis Picabia also shared much with the aesthetics of the Generation of '27.

The Generation of '27 was not exclusively located in Madrid, but rather deployed itself in a geographical constellation which maintained links together. The most important nuclei were in Sevilla, around the Mediodía review, Tenerife around the Gaceta de Arte, and Málaga around the Litoral review. Others members resided in Galicia, Catalonia and Valladolid.

The Tendencies of '27:

The name "Generation of 1927" identifies poets that emerged around 1927, the 300th anniversary of the death of the Baroque poet Luis de Góngora y Argote to whom the poets paid homage. It sparked a brief flash of neo-Gongorism by outstanding poets like Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Dámaso Alonso, Luis Cernuda, Gerardo Diego and Federico García Lorca.

Spanish Civil War aftermath:

The Spanish Civil War ended the movement: García Lorca was murdered, Miguel Hernandez died in jail and other writers (Rafael Alberti, Jose Bergamin, León Felipe, Luis Cernuda, Pedro Salinas, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Bacarisse) were forced into exile, although virtually all kept writing and publishing late throughout the 20th century.

Dámaso Alonso and Gerardo Diego were among those who reluctantly remained in Spain after the Francoists won and more or less reached agreements with the new authoritarian and traditionalist regime or even openly supported it, in the case of Diego. They evolved a lot, combining tradition and avant-garde, and mixing many different themes, from toreo to music to religious and existentialist disquiets, landscapes, etc. Others, such as Vicente Aleixandre and Juan Gil-Albert, simply ignored the new regime, taking the path of interior exile and guiding a new generation of poets.

However, for many Spaniards the harsh reality of Francoist Spain and its reactionary nature meant that the cerebral and aesthetic verses of the Generation of '27 did not connect with what was truly happening, a task that was handled more capably by the poets of the Generation of '50 and the social poets.

Statue:

A statue dedicated to the Generation 27 Poets is now in Seville in Spain. The inscription on the monument translates as 'Seville The poets of the Generation of 27'

List of members[edit]

Rafael Alberti (1902–1999)

Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984)

Amado Alonso (1897–1952)

Dámaso Alonso (1898–1990)

Manuel Altolaguirre (1905–1959)

Francisco Ayala (1906–2009)

Mauricio Bacarisse (1895–1931)

José Bello (1904–2008)

Rogelio Buendía (1891–1969)

Alejandro Casona (1903–1965)

Juan Cazador (1899–1956)

Luis Cernuda (1902–1963)

Juan Chabás (1900–1954)

Ernestina de Champourcín (1905–1999)

Gerardo Diego (1896–1987)

Juan José Domenchina (1898–1959)

Antonio Espina (1894–1972)

Agustín Espinosa (1897–1939)

León Felipe (1884–1968)

Agustín de Foxá (1903–1959)

Pedro García Cabrera (1905–1981)

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)

Pedro Garfias (1901–1967)

Juan Gil-Albert (1904–1994)

Ernesto Giménez Caballero (1899–1988)

Jorge Guillén (1893–1984)

Emeterio Gutiérrez Albelo (1905–1937)

Miguel Hernández (1910–1942)

José María Hinojosa (1904–1936)

Enrique Jardiel Poncela (1901–1952)

Rafael Laffón (1895–1978)

Antonio de Lara (1896–1978)

Juan Larrea (1895–1980)

José López Rubio (1903–1996)

José María Luelmo (1904–1991)

Francisco Madrid (1900–1952)

Paulino Masip (1899–1963)

Concha Méndez (1898–1986)

Miguel Mihura (1905–1977)

Edgar Neville (1899–1967)

Antonio Oliver (1903–1968)

Pedro Pérez-Clotet (1902–1966)

Rafael Porlán (1899–1945)

Emilio Prados (1899–1962)

Joaquín Romero Murube (1904–1969)

Pedro Salinas (1891–1951)

Guillermo de Torre (1900–1971)

José María Souvirón (1904–1973)

Miguel Valdivieso (1897–1966)

Fernando Villalón (1881–1930)

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