Leioa has handed its first team to a coach who knows the club from the inside and knows Athletic from the inside too. After years in Leioa as both a player and a coach, he has now been entrusted with the senior side and will make his debut in a friendly against Athletic Club.
The timing gives the appointment an edge that goes beyond routine change. He has been a member of Athletic since he was six years old, played in Lezama for three years and spent 14 or 15 years at Leioa, from prebenjamín or benjamín through his final year of youth football. When he was told he would debut against Athletic, he had only just decided to stop playing and focus fully on coaching because he wants to live from it and dedicate himself to it.
That path was shaped early. He said Athletic pushed him to earn coaching qualifications at Kirolene while he was still playing in the youth teams, and he is now fully licensed apart from the restriction that keeps him from coaching abroad for the moment. His route after leaving Athletic took in three more years at Sestao River, then time at Portu and two more years back at Leioa before injuries left him with more time out than active over the last two years.
Now the change is practical as well as emotional. He is stepping from the dressing room into the technical area, and that means some of the people around him are not strangers but former teammates. He said he had played with Paredes, Beñat Prados and Agirrezabala, and also shared a dressing room with Nico Williams. Managing them has been more natural than he expected, he said, but the line changes once training starts: the friendships stay, the standards do too, and he plans to press them exactly the same as everyone else.
Ander Gayoso, who is 32 years old, is the figure at the center of that shift, and he already knows what will be asked of him next. Leioa will face Athletic Club in a friendly, even if the exact date is not stated, and the match gives him an immediate test against the club he has lived with since childhood.
