10 TO THE FUTURE

Andoni Iraola was a left-field choice to become Bournemouth manager in June 2023. The noir fiction fan and Marcelo Bielsa disciple tells FFT why falling for Dorset helped to defy a slow start and break records on the south coast

- Mark White

Time stands still when you’re not winning. Andoni Iraola held his breath for his first 15 hours of English football. The Basque landed in England as an enigma in June 2023, unwanted in some circles before he’d even posed with a red-andblack scarf as Bournemouth’s shiny dugout upgrade. Popular predecessor Gary O’Neil had dragged the Cherries away from the Premier League’s trapdoor the previous campaign and, mere months into the job, Iraola had already encountered scepticism, expectations and a devil of a fixture list, all without assistant Inigo Perez due to visa issues that would ultimately never resolve themselves.

It was late October, his 10th league game, before Iraola tasted victory.

“I was never worried about the club’s confidence in me – it was more about my own doubts,” he tells FFT now. “I always felt like the club supported me. They were the ones presenting me with data to say that we were doing well when we were losing!”

Iraola was supposed to be heading out on a ferry this afternoon, but the weather had other ideas. Instead, almost a year to the day after that first win against Burnley, the Bournemouth boss has invited FFT for a chat from his office, whose four walls must have felt like they were closing in 12 months ago.

First impressions feel incongruous. For a man whose football is built on a highpressing whirlwind, Iraola would be expected to be a little more… intense. There’s no noticeable fire behind his eyes: instead, he exhibits a gentle energy for which he surely wouldn’t forgive his players out on the pitch. Considered and polite, he’s happy for the conversation to veer into the long grass, whether we’re talking about tapas or his upbringing. If there’s an ego about him, he hides it well.