Bilbao
His last name is Iribar and he plays goalkeeper. On his lawn, he wears completely black and wears the number 1 on his back. But no, his name is not José Ángel. This is Alex Agirrezabal Iribar, great-nephew of ‘Txopo’ and current goalkeeper for Zarautz, a team from the Gipuzkoan Honor Division. Alex will be this Saturday, March 4, one of the many goalkeepers who wear black to honor Iribar.
The advice of the ‘Txopo’
“When we are with the family we don’t usually talk much about football, but he has given me advice on how to manage the area, for example,” says Alex, who confesses that his passion for goalkeeping runs in the family. What’s more, he is not the only one in the Iribar saga after ‘Txopo’. “Of course, José Ángel has been a great reference in the family. In fact, my uncle and my father have also been goalkeepers.”
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Not only in the Iribar family do they remember José Ángel these days. He does it all over his hometown. “Also in Zarautz as a town it is a reference, as well as in my family. So I am very excited to be able to play in black”, confesses Alex. The Zarautz team was one of the first to join the initiative of the rojiblanco club.
There will be hundreds of goalkeepers in black
In principle, Athletic’s initiative was aimed at its agreed clubs, a total of 167 teams. To all of them, the club sent a letter inviting them to have their goalkeepers wear the color black on their shirts. However, Athletic later announced that said invitation, relating to the matches to be played between Friday the 3rd and Sunday the 5th of March, would be extended to “every club and goalkeeper who wants to have a gesture of recognition for Jose Angel Iribar”. . The glove was picked up in the first instance, as we told on Radio Bilbao, by Álex Remiro.
LaLiga gave the go-ahead
To do this, the rojiblanco club held the corresponding meetings with LaLiga and the Technical Committee of Referees, which had to authorize the goalkeepers of the two teams that faced each other in the same match to wear the same colour. The arbitration management, confirmed Athletic, communicated its “agreement” with this proposal.
In the same sense, LaLiga transmitted “its collaboration in allowing the color of the goalkeeper’s luggage to be repeated on this day.” And it is that the teams cannot, in principle, alter the kits that their players wear – outfield or goalkeepers – once the season has started. In any case, if in some case it was not possible to wear black on the shirt but a club wanted to participate in the tribute, Athletic proposed that they “pose in black in the official photo of the eleven”.
Even Celtic will wear black
Outside of Spanish football, where black will be practically unanimous in all the goals, the support of Celtic from Glasgow is special, with obvious historical ties to both Athletic and the Basque Country. What’s more, one of his figures, Billy McNeill, received the One Club Man in 2019 with which the rojiblanco club recognizes footballers who have played throughout their careers in the same team every year.
In the case of the League, one of the most emotional cases is that of Espanyol, who have dressed their legendary goalkeeper N’kono to announce that they will wear black. In addition, they will do so by incorporating into the shirt the design that another historic goalkeeper like Ricardo Zamora always wore.
