Football Season Guide

As happens every summer at Eibar, there has been a lot of turnover at the club. Even though they’re now preparing for their fifth consecutive season in the top flight, they are still a tiny club and they constantly see their best players being picked off by bigger clubs, forcing them to return to the transfer market and to keep trying to unearth hidden gems. This summer has seen the Basque team lose important players like Ander Capa, Takashi Inui and Dani Garcia, but each of these players had agreed to leave Eibar long before the end of the previous season and, as a result, coach Jose Luis Mendilibar already began phasing them out of the side towards the end of last season. The transition has, therefore, been long underway. In terms of arrivals, the players Eibar have signed don’t match those they are replacing on paper. But this is the case every year and every season there are some players who play the best football of their careers at Eibar. On top of that, coach Mendilibar’s system means that Eibar are always more than the sum of their parts and they are a tough team to play at their little stadium of Ipurua. All of this is reason for Eibar to be optimistic of once again avoiding relegation. They finished ninth last season, their best ever position in the league table, and they have kept their highly-sought-after coach, while restocking their squad using the same processes that they always have. Furthermore, Eibar should be healthier this season, as they surely cannot suffer more injuries than they did in 2017/18. They had more injuries than most other LaLiga teams – and to important players like Yoel Rodriguez, Pedro Leon and Kike Garcia – yet they still managed to compete and finish in the top half.