José María Amorrortu

Career

As a player Amorrortu mainly represented Athletic Bilbao and Real Zaragoza, playing for five seasons at each club.

Having signed from lower-league Getxo in 1973, his time in Bilbao coincided with a fairly successful period in the club's history when they were runners-up in both the 1977 UEFA Cup Final and the 1977 Copa del Rey Final, and also finished in 3rd position in the league in 1976-77 and 1977-78. At the end of the latter campaign Amorrortu moved to newly-promoted Zaragoza and played his part in maintaining their top-division status until he retired from playing in 1983, aged only 30.

Amorrortu then embarked on a career as a football manager and administrator. He began coaching the youth team at Real Zaragoza as soon as he retired as a player and thereafter moved back to clubs in his native Basque Country. He was boss of Barakaldo when they were promoted to the Segunda División B in 1988 and came close to another promotion the following season.

After coaching the Athletic Bilbao youth squad in 1992, he was the director of Athletic's youth academy at Lezama from 1994 until 2001 and is credited with bringing a young Fernando Llorente to the club during that time. He also had a season as the coach of the reserves Bilbao Athletic at a time when they were in the Segunda División plus short spells as caretaker manager for the senior-team at Athletic in 1995 and 1996.

After leaving Athletic he became manager of Eibar in 2003 and then Real Sociedad in 2004 but without much success. From 2006 until 2011 Amorrortu carried out a role at Atlético Madrid as the director of their academy before returning to the same role at Athletic Bilbao.

Amorrortu has also spent time as a selector for the unofficial Basque Country regional side (for which he also featured and scored as a player).

Honours

Player Athletic Bilbao

Manager Barakaldo