Who is José Luis Mendilibar?

By Stephen Kountourou

Another one bites the dust. After just two months, Carlos Carvalhal was shown the door at Olympiakos. Once Sotiris Silaidopoulos takes charge of the game against OFI, and with the new manager to begin work after that, Thyrlos will have had eight managers in 18 months. A damning number that shows the instability of Thrylos as an organisation and as a team right now. 

Sporting Director Pedro Alves was also shown the door with his replacement being former Olympiakos player Darko Kovačević, who was previously in the Sporting Director role from 2010 to 2018. This will be the third in the role this season. In short, Thrylos is a mess and needs to be rebuilt. 

As Michalis Tsochos sited on Gazzetta.gr, Thrylos need to change their tune, to not think about the title until they have sorted out their internal issues and become a competitive team again. This will take time and patience. Something the Olympiakos hierarchy has severely lacked since Pedro Martins was in charge. Now with more changes happening so soon in Piraeus again, in steps new manager José Luis Mendilibar.

Career 

The Spanish manager started his career coaching at Athletic Bilbao’s B team and numerous lower-league sides. His first big appointment was Athletic Bilbao in June 2005, the club he supported. But it was sadly short-lived, as poor form resulted in his dismissal from the Basque club.

Mendilibar then had a four-year stint at Real Valladolid, in which he managed to gain promotion to Laliga in his first season at the club, also reaching the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey. He kept them in the Spanish top flight for two seasons, finishing 15th and 16th respectively. During the 2009/10 season, however, he was fired after a poor run of form that left the club a point above the relegation zone.

A year later he took charge of CA Osasuna mid-season, with the club in 18th. Mendilibar was able to stave off relegation and even finished Los Rojillos in 9th place. An excellent campaign saw Osasuna miss out on the Europa League playoff place by a single point as they finished 8th, just behind Levante. A more disappointing 2012/13 campaign followed as Osasuna narrowly avoided relegation, and with a poor start to the 2013/14 season, Mendilibar was sacked. He then had a short-lived tenure at Levante.

The Spaniard then joined Eibar, who he had managed previously in the lower leagues. This is the longest Mendilibar has spent at any club he has managed to date. In six years with Los Armeros, they finished in 14th, 10th, 9th, 12th, 14th and 20th. 

After breaking the club’s record for highest finishes in the Laliga table twice, reaching the Copa del Rey quarter-finals for the second time as a manager, winning the manager of the year award on one occasion, and sadly seeing his side relegated in 20220/21, Mendilibar left the club at the end of that season. An unsuccessful period at Alaves followed, where he failed to improve their fortunes in their relegation battle.

His most recent, and biggest job came when he joined Sevilla, midway through the 2022/23 season. Rojiblancos were struggling at the bottom of the Laliga table when Mendilibar arrived. With 12 games left, he picked up enough points to finish Sevilla in mid-table. 

Most impressively, however, was their Europa League run. They knocked out Manchester United convincingly in the quarter-finals and narrowly eliminated Juventus in the semi-finals, helping Sevilla reach the final for the 7th time in their history. They took José Mourinho’s Roma to penalties, winning the shootout and claiming their 7th European crown, and Mendilibar’s first major trophy as a manager. 

He ironically took his side to the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium for the UEFA Super Cup match against Champions League winners Manchester City, which Sevilla narrowly lost. Mendilibar’s time in Seville ended early in the 2023/24 season after a poor start to their campaign. 

Managerial Style 

The 62-year-old’s trademark formation is the 4-2-3-1.Totalfootballanalysis.com when describing his tactics at Sevilla said: “He loves high pressing and rather direct play. He immediately switched Sevilla from playing with a quite positionally fluid, possession-heavy three-centre-back shape to playing with a more traditional 4-2-3-1 structure.

Additionally, Mendilibar got his team playing exactly the way he wanted, very quickly, highlighting a benefit of the more universally familiar and in some ways less controlled approach he takes.” 

The article also highlighted that Sevilla created more shots while increasing their shot quality which gave them a higher chance of scoring. They became much more direct in their play, moving the ball forward over a distance with fewer passes.

Speaking to freelance Journalist Panos Kostopoulos, on Mendilibar as a manager, he said: “He's an old-school coach, he wants his teams to be solid at the back and is against building from the back and modern tiki-taka. He prefers crosses directly from defence to the wingers or strikers. 

He demands a lot from players and I think that in Spain they loved him. He was constantly joking with them. He has a very strong personality.” 

He's in for now, but not forever 

Reports suggest that Jose Luis Mendiliber will only be signing for four months and see out the rest of Olympiakos 2023/24 campaign. There are pros and cons to this decision.

Firstly this can be seen as a good low-risk appointment, with Olympiakos season seemingly over already. Mendilibar can come in, assess the squad, and see how far he can take Thrylos in the Conference League and how high they can finish in the league.

Meanwhile, Kovacevic has four months to implement changes into the club internally, search for a new manager if Mendilibar chooses not to stay for the 2024/25 campaign and decide which players to sign on new deals, which ones to let go at the end of the season and look at new transfers for the summer. 

The caveat would be that players, whose contracts are close to expiring, may not wish to renew if Olympiakos is still in an uncertain and unstable place in the summer. 

Also, there is the argument that the players may not feel motivated to play under a manager who they know may not be there next season. 

Even if Mendilibar's early results are inconsistent, he should still see out the season. 

Thrylos must lose this fixation on getting back to ‘winning the title NOW’ because the harder the club tries to rectify the mistakes of these ‘quick fix’ solutions, the further behind they will fall from their rivals. 

The Olympiakos U19s qualifying for the UEFA Youth League Round of 16, shows what the senior team can accomplish if given time to develop a long-term project. The youth is the green shoots of hope for the first team. 

Darko Kovacevic, as a returning Sporting Director, must be shown faith that he can make the correct choices the club needs and what made him successful in the role during his first tenure.

IF, and it is a very big if, Olympiakos can finally start acting like a football club again and not a revolving door of players, managers and Sporting Directors, come next season the foundations can be laid for a long-term project. Especially with the 100th anniversary just around the corner.

@SteveKountourou

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