Padel, honesty and who his coaching reference is - five stories from Iraola meeting Thiago
We learned plenty more about Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola during his AXA Training Centre chat with Thiago Alcantara.
The boss shared insights from his playing and coaching career – and time on Merseyside so far – as he spoke to the former Reds midfielder.
Their conversation is available to watch in full below, and read on for five stories we particularly enjoyed…
Iraola was not destined to be a coach.
In fact, the Basque was initially unsure about making the leap from the pitch to the dugout as his playing career wound down in the mid-2010s.
But he believes those feelings of doubt may actually have been beneficial to the progress that followed.
“I didn’t have it very clear that I wanted to become a coach. I wanted to try, but I wasn’t fully convinced,” Iraola tells Thiago.
“I think that benefited me because I was ready to make mistakes, I was almost expecting to fail and say, ‘OK, I’ve tried but prefer to do something else.’ But the everyday [work] makes you want to improve.
“And now because I’m in Liverpool, you think, ‘OK, your trajectory has been upwards, upwards.’ No, it hasn’t been. Overall, probably yes, but in the trajectory there have been ups, downs, ups, downs, ups, downs.
“From those downs is when you learn and you improve for the next time, you are better and then you can go step by step, go improving and [taking on] more challenges and more difficult things.
“But in that trajectory, you ask every manager – even the most successful ones will have moments where they are thinking, ‘This is not for me.’ For sure.”
Wins are for everyone.
Iraola has overseen four victories at the Reds’ helm so far amid an unbeaten beginning to the 2026-27 campaign.
Beyond the obvious thrill of a win and the joy it creates on a matchday, he takes significant satisfaction from the effect successes have around the environment of the club.
“A lot of times when you win games, I think the people that work with us here don’t receive the recognition,” says the 44-year-old. “The people in the kitchen, the ones in the laundry room, the ones that help us with the boots.
“And when you feel that they are happy, that they enjoy it, I feel lucky to be in this position so we can make people around us happy.
“This is probably one of the best things that football can give you.”
Honesty is his best policy.
It’s an inherent fundamental of football that a coach can only select 11 players for each match.
And when it comes to managing a squad with many more individuals striving for minutes, Iraola considers a frank and direct approach to be most appropriate.
He explains: “You cannot tell a player if he comes here to talk to you, ‘Don’t worry, you will have your chances’ and maybe he doesn’t have the chances.
“I prefer to tell him, ‘Hey, you have to fight for your position. You are in a difficult place because I’m preferring this one in front.’ So it’s more a challenge.
“And even if you are thinking that he will have minutes, I don’t like to tell him, ‘Don’t worry, you will play.’ Because that’s a mistake when you promise, ‘Don’t worry, you will play a lot, you will have your minutes.’ Maybe he’s not playing well or he’s not deserving the minutes and then you cannot give him those minutes and you have a problem there.
“So, it’s like, ‘OK, you are the one that has to earn your minutes. If you do well, I trust you, I think you have the level to play for us, then I think you are going to play a lot.’
“But it’s going to be a matter of your performance, it’s not because I will give you a present with your minutes. You have to take the minutes from another player and it’s how it should work.
“It's impossible to be fair with everyone, but I prefer to say every decision has to be putting the team first. Even if it’s difficult for me, the decision, if it is for the benefit of the team you have to take it.”
Ernesto Valverde is his coaching ‘reference’.
Iraola’s lengthy playing career at Athletic Club included two spells with Ernesto Valverde in charge of the Basque outfit.
Thiago asks about those who have particularly influenced his coaching philosophy – and Valverde’s name quickly comes to the top.
“I think we copy a lot, as coaches,” says Iraola. “You go to watch one training [and think], ‘I like what I’m watching, I will try to do something similar or adapt something.’
“From the coaches I’ve had, it’s the same. If you ask me for one name, I always put Valverde as a reference.
“Sometimes we look at managers like they have to be special, they have to be leaders. Sometimes it’s just having the common sense; the benefit of the team, the benefit of the group. I think Ernesto had a lot of those things that I tried to use.”
And the boss is a padel player – on one condition…
Iraola and his backroom staff are partial to playing the popular game during any downtime at the AXA Training Centre.
But there is a strict rule: the Reds must have won their most recent fixture.
“If we haven’t won the last game, we don’t allow ourselves the time to play,” he stresses. “So, we should be more ready for the next time, so we will win and we can at least spend one hour playing!”
