Football is full of people who talk a lot and say very little. Today’s coaches and managers wear headphones and talk to analysts who are on the line to other analysts poring over data, while the players run around with no idea what they’re supposed to be doing. Meanwhile, in a stadium somewhere, a man with grey hair and a weather-worn face slips his hands in his pockets and surveys everything without watching anything in particular. That’s José Luis Mendilibar, the “Fox of Zaldibar”. He doesn’t write football code, he doesn’t talk about “xGoals”, he just wins.
A Spaniard who keeps things short and to the point; he has no time for nonsense. Sevilla removed him after he won for them a European title, and he wound up at Olympiacos a few months later. So, the Andalusians lost a coach, and the Reds found someone who knows what he is doing.
In the beginning there was Defense
The first thing he did was fix the back line. The players stopped looking at each other like they’d only just met and started moving like they knew where they ought to be. Then, he fixed the attack. Ayoub El-Kaabi started scoring so consistently, even he must have wondered if he’d ever stop. The midfield exerted a type of pressure that can derail any system the opposing team throws at them. And all of a sudden, Olympiacos started playing the way it should have been all along.
One of Mendilibar’s defining characteristics is the confidence he places in young players. And how he’s not afraid to give a chance to players who may have spent a lot of time on the bench under previous coaches. His ability to create a disciplined yet free-flowing environment really helped players like Kostas Fortounis and Vincente Iborra, who reached their full potential under his guidance.
Football is about the moments. You can play magisterially for 89 minutes, then lose in the 90th. You can be the best, most expensive and best-prepared team, but all that counts for nothing if the other side want the win more than you. And Mendilibar’s Olympiacos wanted it more.
In Europe, they knocked out teams with bigger names, bigger budgets and more experience. They played the way Olympiacos should play—like a team that isn’t cowed by anyone, that won’t be intimidated, that fears no one.
Finals aren’t about tactics. They’re about courage. And when Ayoub El-Kaabi leapt into the air and sent the ball into the net off Hezze’s cross, the whole of Greece froze for a few seconds before erupting into cheers. Olympiacos won 1-0 against Fiorentina and won the Europa Conference League title.
For the first time in history, a Greek club had won a European title. Mendilibar, calm as ever, just stood there on the touchline like he’d seen it all before.
“He doesn’t utter big words; he doesn’t analyze everything in numbers – Mendilibar speaks on the field and that’s where he wins.”
But Mendilibar isn’t just a coach. He’s a man who understands football in depth. His philosophy is based on creating teams that fight, that give everything on the pitch, that meld into a family.
At Sevilla FC, his players talked about his sincerity and how he made them feel like they belonged. Now, the same thing has happened at Olympiacos. In the locker room, none of the players feel sidelined anymore. Everyone has a role; everyone matters.
Football’s tough. You win today and tomorrow they’re already asking what you’re going to do next. Can Olympiacos excel in Europe this season like he did in the last one? Will Mendilibar keep his squad in one piece?
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Focus on youth
Today belongs to José Luis Mendilibar. To the man who came on board a battered, storm-tossed “ship” and guided it to the longest and most joyous night in Olympiacos’ history. And in football, that’s all that matters.
It wasn’t just tactics. It was psychology. Mendilibar didn’t fill his players’ heads with castles in the sand, he didn’t talk to them about “big challenges”. He just told them to do their jobs right. He gave them roles and clear instructions. And, most importantly of all, he gave his confidence.
From the moment he set foot in Olympiacos’ training ground in Rentis, he placed special emphasis on the young players. Panagiotis Retsos, who’d been struggling to maintain stable form for years, has turned into a rock-solid center-back. The young talents Kostoulas and Mouzakitis have proven themselves beyond any doubt this season and become key players. And there are so many other young players coming up after them. Mendilibar’s is a simple creed: if you can help, you play.
The Basque is no stranger to challenges. In his career, he’s led teams that struggled to survive, he’s suffered tough defeats and won titles, too. When Sevilla sacked him a few months after he led them to victory in the Europa League, many thought his career was ending. But stuff like that is water off a duck’s back for Mendilibar—he just keeps working and moves on.
In Greece, he took over an Olympiacos that was still reeling from its 4-0 loss to Maccabi Haifa. That night in the summer of 2022 had traumatized the club—and shown that the team had lost its toughness. With help from the Club president, Mendilibar changed that. He re-infused Olympiacos with a winner’s DNA and created a team that stopped being afraid.
Putting his faith in hard work, simplicity and discipline, Mendilibar made Olympiacos a team that yields to no one. Of course, hard work, simplicity and discipline are also the three main tenants of the mentality that Evangelos Marinakis has instilled in the Club’s management.
I prefer not to say too much…
Mendilibar’s face doesn’t change—it’s the same in front of the cameras as it is on the bench. His interviews are quite disarming: no frills, no meaningless tactical analysis. He answers in a sentence or two at most. As if he’s bored of all the chatter, as if he believes that everything that matters has already been said on the pitch. He doesn’t sugarcoat things. He doesn’t beat about the bush. “We played well, we won”. “We played badly, we lost”. Nothing superfluous. When asked about his philosophy, he shrugs his shoulders. “Football is simple,” he says. And he means it.
Mendilibar is a realist. He knows that football is merciless, that one bad season can change everything. But the question is: how far can he take Olympiacos?
To be precise, that’s what he’s doing now, and will continue to do for at least another football season.
Evangelos Marinakis (again) personally achieved this development, in quick fashion. Mendilibar’s renewal, in fact, was announced during the festive afternoon of March 9 and after the Reds had downed OFI Crete 1-0 at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium – all amid the celebrations and joy of the Legend’s 100th birthday the next day. It was (yet another) expensive gift.
The Basque manager will remain in Piraeus for the 2025-26 season, where he is loved and loves, to continue on the course he has charted — on the path that bears his signature.
