Football Season Guide

Eibar, the smallest ever club in Spain’s top division, avoided relegation again last season to make it seven seasons in a row in LaLiga. They were battling near the bottom for most of the season, but had a good run after the coronavirus pause and managed to stay up. The key to Eibar’s success over these past few years has been coach Jose Luis Mendilibar, who has been at the club since 2015. He is a veteran coach who gets his team playing intense football, no matter who the players in his squad are. As happens every summer, Eibar have lost some key players during the off-season. However, they have an excellent sporting director in Fran Garagarza and he usually manages to unearth hidden gems. They’ll be hoping he can do so once again. The strength of this Eibar team is the coach, more than any of the players. They don’t really have any stars. Just solid players in every position. Of course, not having any stars is a weakness. So too is the fact that this is an ageing squad, with the highest average age in all of LaLiga. It remains to be seen if Mendilibar can pull it off once again with this squad that is one year older.