CHICAGO -- Perhaps the greatest insight into Andoni Iraola's character came with the one question he wouldn't answer.
In a wide-ranging interview with a handful of reporters, including ESPN, the new Liverpool head coach spoke engagingly on an array of topics -- on his boyhood team Athletic Club, on how to repair a fractured Liverpool side and on managers' modern fame -- but he did once opt to keep his cards close to his chest.
When asked about the thank-you letter he sent to Liverpool after their unsuccessful attempt to sign him as a player from Athletic Club in 2013, Iraola paused and smiled.
"I don't know if I want to tell you this story so early in my career here," Iraola said. "I would like to win some games first. Look, it is a nice story but if you remember in some months, you can ask me again."
The letter, so the story goes, detailed Iraola's reasons for deciding to remain at his boyhood club, for whom he made more than 500 appearances and ultimately went on to captain. The gesture had a profound impact on senior figures at Anfield on account of its gracious nature, and therefore it should not have come as a surprise when, more than a decade on, Iraola politely declined to elaborate on the details.
"I don't like to do this from the beginning," he explained. "I just don't want to. It will look like I am selling myself. We need some time to win some games."
It was a humble but pragmatic response from a man who exhibited both of those attributes in abundance during this chat at Liverpool's team hotel in Chicago, where the club are spending the first week of their preseason tour.
For Iraola, it will be his first real opportunity to assess his squad first-hand, with a number of senior players including last summer's big-money signings, Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, set to join the Reds' initial 31-player travelling party in the United States next week.
Only 12 months ago, Iraola was based at a hotel just a few blocks away, having travelled to Chicago as part of Bournemouth's preseason preparations. The 44-year-old announced in April that he would be leaving Bournemouth at the end of the season, though not before he guided them to a club-record sixth-place finish in the Premier League, earning Europa League qualification for the first time in their history.
His impressive body of work during his three seasons at Bournemouth, and previously in Spain at Rayo Vallecano, ensured he was at the top of Liverpool's list when they parted company with Arne Slot. Despite winning the Premier League title in his first year at Anfield, the Dutchman departed in May following difficult second season in charge.
"The process with Bournemouth was very, very clean," Iraola said. "I still have a very, very good relationship with everyone there. We decided to announce it when it was good for both sides. They knew sometime before. I decided not to make any decision before the season finished.
"We were fighting for European places, we were fighting for the Champions League in the last game of the season. I didn't want to spend time thinking about what I was doing before the season ended. Only then I started to think: 'OK, what is next?' That is when I had my plan."
Despite being linked with vacant managerial positions at Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Bayer Leverkusen, Iraola was confirmed as the new Liverpool head coach in June. He is now tasked with restoring a sense of cohesion to a team that began to look increasingly fractured over the course of last term.
The Reds' underwhelming defence of their title culminated in a fifth-place finish and the departure of several experienced stars, including Mohamed Salah, whose public feud with Slot provided an unsavoury subplot to what was already an arduous campaign. Iraola's arrival offers the chance of a reset, and it is hoped that the former Spain international's experience as a player in Bilbao will enable him to connect with Liverpool's proud, often tribal, regional identity.
"It is a very special club," Iraola said of Athletic Club, whose strict Basque-only player policy limits recruitment to players born or developed in the Basque Country. "You have to maximise every player you have in the squad. You cannot sell him and choose another one a lot of times.
"As a player, you have to give extra. The only way that policy can be successful is if you give 100%. This creates a connection and you see they win things, they have never been relegated.
"I see a lot of things [similar to Liverpool]. This sense of belonging, of being a little bit different. This connection, also, with players from the academy. The atmosphere of Anfield. This is one of the biggest clubs in the world and, in some way, the comparison [to Athletic Club] probably isn't fair. But in a lot of ways I see a lot of things similar."
Iraola finds himself part of a golden generation for Spanish coaching, with the current holders of the World Cup, European Championship, Champions League, Europa League, Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup all having triumphed under the tutelage of Spanish managers.
Next season in the Premier League, Iraola will be facing off against Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta and new Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso, both of whom he has known since childhood. So what does he think is behind elite football's Spanish revolution?
"They ask me a lot why a lot of Basque managers especially have arrived to this level and why a lot of Spanish teams are winning a lot of things," Iraola said. "I always say that a sense of collectiveness is very important. Spain has never had the best athletes. If you analyse, in swimming, track and field, they don't normally win medals. But in collective sports they are very good. In football, basketball, handball, hockey.... normally they have good teams. We always put the team first.
"An example is someone like [Manchester City midfielder and Spain captain] Rodri. He didn't score or make an assist but at the end they won the World Cup and he won best player of the tournament. Team-first was always integrated in how we're raised."
It is that team-first approach that underpins Iraola's philosophy as a coach, and he credits former Athletic Club club boss Ernesto Valverde -- a man who was, coincidentally, on the shortlist to replace Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool in 2024 -- with helping to shape his managerial identity.
"I had him when I was in the academy and he was the one who gave me the chance to play in the first team," Iraola said. "I also had him towards the end of my Athletic Club career. I learned a lot from him.
"I think it was his common sense. He never made problems bigger than they were. He always understood the players. He was very firm with the things he believed in. But how he treated the players, both those who were playing and those who weren't, I liked it a lot."
Like Slot before him, Iraola's low-key personality is a departure from the all-encompassing charisma of Klopp, whose absence is still keenly felt by some fans at Anfield. Unlike some of his peers, Liverpool's new head coach does not project the image of a football obsessive, instead preferring to spend his days off indulging his passion for cycling and spending time with his young family. Still, Iraola exudes an air of quiet confidence -- even if he remains somewhat baffled by his growing celebrity status.
"It's for me a strange situation because I always understand that football is about the players," he said. "You know, at the beginning when I arrived in England, I remember the first few games I didn't go with the players to clap the supporters [after games] and this was something [assistant coaches] Tommy [Elphick] and Shaun [Cooper] said [to join in].
"In Spain, you understand that normally you leave the players, they are the ones who have played the game, they are the ones involved and normally we are the ones who stayed behind. Normally in England managers are the ones [who go to the fans], so I have done it every time, so these are the cultural things and when you arrive in a new league, you have to learn.
"Now it is not the case, I understand better what people think. But I always say we are assistants to the players. They are the main part. Our main thing is to help them and they are the only ones who can give us success. We are not as important as they are, that is pretty clear."
At Liverpool, though, the manager -- or, in Iraola's case, head coach -- bears the ultimate responsibility in the eyes of supporters. For all of his previous successes, there can be no disputing the fact his move to Anfield represents an enormous step up in terms of expectations, both on and off the pitch.
"For me, now, it is about creating a very good team to beat, a very difficult team to beat," Iraola said. "The team that I envision now, that I see and think of, if we become that team, I think we are going to be successful. But now, me, talking about that team, the long-term success and the goals ... in the end you have to do the job.
"I think the supporters have to feel identified with what they see on the pitch. Sometimes it's not about just putting one ball in the top corner. A lot of times the ones watching the game are ... OK, they cannot do it, but they can run, they can fight for the balls, they can press, they can fight until the last line for every situation and when they see this from the players of their team it's easier to get behind that team. I will encourage my team to give them these things."
He added: "The most important thing that we can deliver is our performances. It doesn't matter if I speak well, if I don't speak well, if I say the right things or if I don't say the right things. At the end people just want to see the team play well and deliver good results. I know this is 90% of my job."
It is a shrewd assessment. Slot's exit just a year on from his Premier League title triumph is proof enough that the tide can quickly turn if standards are not met and Iraola will know the pressure to deliver at a club like Liverpool is both acute and immediate.
But, from the moment he sent that letter to Anfield 13 years ago, Iraola marked himself out as a classy operator. If he can translate that into success in the dugout, perhaps next time he won't hesitate when asked to share the full story.
