A tiny club by La Concha with an outsized Premier League footprint

The walk to Plaza Errotatxo takes you past the golden sands and turquoise waters where three boys at the centre of this story began their football education. The entrance to Antiguoko KE’s headquarters is easy to miss in San Sebastian, tucked behind moped bays in the shadow of an eight-storey apartment block. Behind a wooden door, the club displays the memorabilia of its graduates with pride.

“We now have three Antiguoko coaches in the Premier League,” says long-standing coach Roberto Montiel, smiling at how a small area has delivered the managers of Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea — “surely one of the more implausible statistics of modern football or, indeed, any sport.” At the start of summer there were only three English coaches in the Premier League, and all three from Antiguoko are at top-tier clubs.

From beach football to trophy cabinets

Antiguoko is special: a Basque youth academy a couple of hundred metres from La Concha Bay with a 40-strong list of alumni who have gone on to make top-division careers. It was here that schoolboy Andoni Iraola set out on the journey that led, 35 years later, to his appointment as Liverpool head coach. One of his old No 15 Athletic Club shirts is framed on the wall with the message: “Para mis amigos del Antiguoko, que algo me habran ensenada” — For my friends from Antiguoko, they must have taught me something.

Edorta Salegi, Antiguoko president, throws up his hands when asked how many people attend youth fixtures: “Two hundred, sometimes. Including 50 scouts.” On the far wall a pair of Xabi Alonso’s boots are displayed — the ones the newly appointed Chelsea manager wore for Liverpool in the iconic 2005 Champions League final against Milan. “They smell of anxiety,” is the club joke. Liverpool fought back from 3-0 down at half-time, won on penalties and Alonso held the trophy aloft.

A pair of Mikel Arteta’s boots are encased museum-style on the same wall. Arteta was the star boy, the special one, the leader, as the pioneering neighbourhood team forged its reputation travelling to tournaments in Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico and almost always winning.

Childhood memories on sand and gravel

“I was coaching the under-nines,” Salegi recalls. “One of the player’s fathers came up to me and said, ‘Hey, there’s a really good player at school, this boy’s a phenomenon’. Lots of parents were saying the same. I said, ‘I’ll go and have a look’. It was Mikel Arteta. And he stood out from everyone. That kid was doing things, at the age of nine, that weren’t normal.”

Former player Alvaro Parra remembers Arteta’s school years: “There was a boy in Mikel’s class with Down’s syndrome. When they played football, Mikel was so good he would dribble past the whole team to reach the opposition goal. Then he’d stop, pass it to this boy and he’d score.”

Iraola was born in June 1982, three months and six miles from Arteta’s March birth. Alonso was in the next year up at school with Aritz Aduriz, the future Athletic Club and Spain international striker. All four were often in the same Antiguoko team.

Parra recalls a Benidorm tournament where positions were swapped: “Aritz Aduriz was in goal, Xabi Alonso up front, Iraola on the left of midfield. We started losing every match… They put us back in our proper positions, and we ended up winning the final, with a goal from Xabi Alonso from the centre circle.”

Alonso was “very small, very frail” and “not that good” until a growth spurt at 17. “In one under-17 final, we left him on the bench,” Salegi says. “We saw more of Mikel Alonso, his brother. But it turns out that Xabi had a growth spurt and took control of midfield.”

Iraola grew up quiet and shy in Usurbil. “The real impression came when I saw him play and thought, ‘Wow’. He was slight, not physically strong, but he dribbled very well,” says Parra. He played as a right-winger for Antiguoko; Ernesto Valverde later moved him back at Athletic Club. “Valverde told him, ‘You’re going to be the best right-back in Spain’.”

The club’s scouts recruited on La Concha beach, setting up portable goals on sand when the tide was out. “There were crossbars and posts that we’d set up,” confirms Montiel, who coached Iraola for six years. “You’d mark out the pitch where the beach was driest… Sometimes there were puddles. You had to deal with the puddle, get past the puddle, and any wet patches in the sand.”

Salegi notes the character building: “The beach requires extra physical effort… I’ve played on the beach when, as you were about to take a corner, suddenly a wave would come in.”

A gravel pitch beside Campo de Futbol Municipal Berio, where Antiguoko runs teams up to under-19s, produced another story. Coach Montiel made Iraola hold possession against three pressers: “A minute went by, and they didn’t take it off him… I said to them, ‘That is what we have to do when there are five minutes remaining. We have to hold onto the ball. And there’s a lad here who’s got God-given quality. What do you have to do? Give the ball to him’.”

Legacy and the conveyor belt

Salegi says there are “no secrets or mysteries” behind the success, just “tremendous passion, character, talent, physical attributes, avoiding injuries, good family environments, many things have to come together.” Parra sums it up: “Antiguoko is the most famous youth academy in Spain right now — after Barcelona, because they have La Masia, but more so than Real Madrid. And in terms of ratio, probably even more so than Barcelona.”

The club has produced Martin Zubimendi at Arsenal and counts past victories over Real Sociedad and Real Madrid. Coaches like Benat San Jose and Lander Garcia also started there. Salegi jokes about being ignored by Txiki Begiristain: he once advised signing Antoine Griezmann for Manchester City when Griezmann was “just starting out” at Real Sociedad.

At San Mames, Athletic Club’s partnership with Antiguoko runs until 2030. The Berio ground now has artificial turf and a small stand. Iraola, once a quiet, studious and ultra-competitive boy, returned from New York City to coach Antiguoko’s youth before moving on. “He wasn’t the typical passionate coach… When I tried to renew his contract, I said, ‘Hey, next year you could be the head coach’. But he had other offers,” Montiel recalls.

Parra notes Iraola “has never been your typical footballer. He’s never been the sort to drive fancy cars or wear fancy clothes. He’s got his own life, and football is his job. Nothing more.” Arteta was signed by Barcelona as a boy, Alonso began at Real Sociedad before Liverpool, Madrid and Bayern Munich, and led Spain in 2010.

A pedant might point out Gary O’Neil’s June appointment at promoted Ipswich Town makes four English managers in the Premier League, but that does not lessen Antiguoko’s influence. Back where Alonso, Arteta and Iraola began, the club will watch the 2026-27 Premier League with extra interest. “It just so happened that all three were very quiet, good students with a good head on their shoulders,” Salegi smiles.