Madrid, (Samajweekly) Spanish football club Sociedad Deportivo Eibar confirmed on Tuesday that coach Jose Luis Mendilibar will not continue as their first team coach following their relegation from La Liga to the Spanish second division at the end of this season.
The decision taken by “mutual agreement,” according to the club website, ends Mendilibar’s six-year spell as Eibar coach (his second at the club), which has seen him oversee nearly all of the club’s seven-season stay in the Spanish top flight, reports Xinhua.
He replaced Gaizka Garitano at the helm of the club from a town of just 30,000 inhabitants in the summer of 2015 and has been in charge for 248 matches, taking Eibar to an impressive ninth place finish in the 2017-18 campaign and avoiding relegation with relative ease until this recently finished campaign.
“Sociedad Deportivo Eibar wishes to deeply thank the work and the development of the technical staff over these seasons, as well as their professionalism and dedication and we wish them the best of luck for the future,” reads the statement.
The 60-year-old Mendilibar is the second coach to leave their post in Spain after the end of the 2020-21 season after Sergio Gonzalez was sacked in the wake of Valladolid’s relegation earlier in the season.
However, he may not be out of work for long as the ‘merry-go-round’ of departures and appointments continues over the coming days.
Mendilibar has been strongly linked with a move to Getafe in the Spanish press, with the current Getafe boss, Jose Bordalas taking over at Valencia, who are currently without a coach after Javi Gracia was sacked at the start of May.
