Bilbao Athletic already have a new manager

Athletic only recently made official what was already an open secret from the very moment Carlos Grupez announced that he would not continue as manager of Bilbao Athletic: the coach chosen by the Lezama officials to take charge of the bench of the red and white reserve team is Yokin Arambarri, the 39-year-old Guipuzcoan coach who has just led Eibar’s reserve team to promotion to the second RFEF tier.

“Joquim Arambari and Athletic have reached an agreement for the Brazilian to become manager of Bilbao Athletic in the first league next season. Azcoitiara joins from SD Eibar, whose team CD Vitoria were the prestigious champions of the Tercera Group and were promoted,” reads the note issued by Lezama.

Arambarri will have most of Gurpegui’s coaching staff from the recently concluded season as his assistants, with Ander Murillo acting as second, Armando continuing as goalkeeping coach, Mikel Legarreta as physical trainer and Iñigo Aguinaga as psychologist.

As the Ibaigane Corporation itself emphasized in a statement, the new Athletic subsidiary’s manager “was coach of Eibar’s youth teams for seven seasons, the last three of the first subsidiary. He finally arrived at Umbe after a long career in Eibar’s youth teams.” A player who played 135 games for the second B, mainly in forward position, in Biscay football, he studied sports education at Begoñaco Andorra Mari, then graduated from CAFYD, doing an internship at Lezama in his final year. He played for CD Anaitasuna until 2004, then played for Aurela de Ondarroa, Barakaldo CF, SD Guernica, Lemona, Sestão River (5 seasons) and Arenas Club (3 seasons).

The new Bilbao Athletic manager is not due to hold his first press conference until the start of training at the Bilbao subsidiary, scheduled for July 8.