Rafael Iriondo
Spanish football player/manager (1918-2016)
Rafael Iriondo Aurtenetxea (24 October 1918 – 24 February 2016) was a Spanish football forward and manager.
He amassed La Liga totals of 285 matches and 89 goals over 15 seasons, with Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad. He subsequently became a manager, working for nearly 30 years and being in charge of both clubs.
Club career
Born in Guernica, Biscay, Iriondo arrived at Basque giants Athletic Bilbao in 1940, from Atlético Tetuán. He made his La Liga debut on 29 September in a 2–2 away draw against Valencia CF and, during his 13-year spell with the club, would form an historic attacking partnership with Agustín Gaínza, José Luis Panizo and Telmo Zarra, winning the 1942–43 league and four Copa del Generalísimo trophies.
Iriondo took part in 332 competitive games for Athletic and scored 116 goals, joining neighbouring Barakaldo CF in 1953. After a couple of months, however, he returned to the top division with Real Sociedad, retiring at the end of the 1954–55 season.
Iriondo started coaching immediately after retiring, with modest SD Indautxu in the Segunda División. He continued in his native region the following years, with Deportivo Alavés and Barakaldo.
In the 1968–69 campaign, Iriondo returned to Athletic Bilbao as head coach, helping the side to the 11th place in the league and the domestic cup.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rafael Iriondo” as spanish football player/manager (1918-2016). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q962800. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2016, 1940 and 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rafael Iriondo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.