Iñigo Pérez is set to face Iraola again as an old bond meets a new test

Villarreal coach Iñigo Pérez is preparing to meet Iraola at Anfield. Tonight’s meeting will test a bond forged long before either man took charge of a team. The encounter comes in the Champions League setting described around the fixture.

Pérez’s route to this point included a work-permit refusal by the Home Office. A Football Association panel also declared him incapable of contributing to English football, and his family was turned back. He is now on Villarreal’s bench at Anfield.

Their connection goes back 22 years. They lived in the same residence, came through the same academy and played in the same team. They later worked together, one as manager and the other as assistant, before embarking on an adventure together. Pérez subsequently had to make his way as a coach alone.

One snapshot of their shared playing past came in March 2012, when Iñigo Pérez celebrated a goal with his Athletic Bilbao teammates, including Andoni Iraola. Now they will meet on opposite sides of the touchline. Iraola was 19 and six months away from his first-team debut at the time described.

Pérez recalled that Iraola called him on his first day as a head coach. «He wished me luck and said he was there for me,» Pérez said, adding that his friend had offered his support. After his coaching debut, Pérez summed up the unexpected turn in his life: «Sometimes life brings what you never imagined.»

The anticipation is mutual. «I’m looking forward to seeing him; we speak continuously, always there,» Pérez said. Carlos Gurpegui, a teammate from that period, described the pair as «intellectually brilliant».

Raúl Fernández remembers Andoni as having «a privileged mind» and Iñigo as highly intuitive. Iraola always won when they played fantasy football, he recalled. Their understanding of the game had been apparent early: Iraola said that at 14 or 15 Pérez already thought about football with maturity and had a clearer idea than he did of becoming a coach.

The reunion follows a defeat for Pérez’s Villarreal: in September 2026, the team lost 3-2 to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. Against Iraola, the immediate challenge is now to turn their shared past into a touchline contest, without their friendship disappearing when the match begins.