BIG WINS (LI). When José Félix Guerrero scored a hat-trick in a 7-0 victory vs Levante
The first thrashing produced by Los Armeros in the 21st century took place on November 7th 2001
A hat-trick by José Félix Guerrero stood out when Eibar produced the team’s first thrashing of the 21st century, earning a 7-0 win over Levante in a match played on November 7th 2001.
The team’s previous victory at Ipurua by a similar margin had taken place back in the 1987/88 season, a 6-0 win over Lalin when the team was competing in the Segunda B division. After being promoted to the Second Division, it was much more difficult to win by such wide margins.
That’s what happened, though, on November 7th 2001, during Los Azulgranas’ 14th consecutive season in the second tier of Spanish football. This Matchday 13 duel against Levante was played on a cold Wednesday evening. Until that point, the club’s biggest margin of victory in the Second Division had been against Leonesa in January of 1954, with a 6-0 win in Ipurua. Almost 48 years had passed since then.
On what would prove to be another historic night, coach Blas Ziarreta put out a line-up of: Almunia, Jauregi, Matxon, Luis Prieto, Cabrejo, Guerrero, Gaizka Garitano (Solaun), Xabi Sánchez, Sukia (Irazusta), Jorge Sánchez, Aldeondo (Pablo Zuloaga).
Goals: There were many goals and Garitano opened the scoring in the very first minute from a corner. In the 17th and 21st minutes, Sukia and José Félix Guerrero finished off counter-attacking moves to make it 3-0, before Egoitz Sukia made it 4-0 in first-half stoppage time. In the second 45 minutes, Guerrero netted another with the 51st tick of the clock, before Guerrero scored again to complete his hat-trick in the 61st minute, ahead of a Jorge Sánchez strike that rounded off the night’s scoring in the 77th minute. From that Eibar team, Almunia, Jauregi, Luis Prieto, José Félix Guerrero, Gaizka Garitano and Aldeondo all spent time playing in the First Division in their careers.
Levante actually fielded two former Eibar players whom they had signed in 2000, namely left-back Gorka García and centre-back Iñaki Descarga, with the latter becoming an important player for Levante by spending eight seasons with the Valencian outfit, three of them in the First Division.
The goalkeeper who kept a clean sheet in this big win was Manolo Almunia, who was on loan with Eibar that 2001/02 season from Celta Vigo, winning the Second Division’s Zamora Trophy that campaign. That meant he followed in the footsteps of Eibar legend José Ignacio Garmendia, who had won the same individual trophy twice (in 1991/92 and in 1995/96), while Xabi Irureta was the next Eibar shot-stopper to win that prize, doing so in 2013/14. Almunia went on to have a very successful career, spending eight seasons with English side Arsenal and even playing 70 minutes of the 2006 Champions League final, as Arsenal fell 2-1 to Barcelona in Paris.
As for the night’s hat-trick hero José Félix Guerrero, he had been on loan at Eibar from Athletic Club in the 1995/96 season and, curiously, he was on loan with the club again in this 2001/02 campaign, but this time from Real Sociedad. He had a great season overall, with nights such as this.
For his part, Gaizka Garitano had signed for Eibar from Bilbao Athletic in the 1998/99 season, a very up and down campaign in which Garitano played a lot in the first half of it when Kike Ormaetxea was the coach before he missed a lot of the second half of the season with injury, only managing to come back for 11 minutes in Matchday 41. After that difficult first spell at Ipurua, Garitano moved to Ourense in Segunda B and played there with the Galician club for two seasons. That earned him a return to Ipurua, where he became the leader on the pitch between 2001 and 2005, ultimately becoming captain of the team ahead of a 2005 switch to Real Sociedad, before ending his career at Alavés.
The information used in this report has been provided by the Eibar historian Jesús Gutiérrez, a member of the SD Eibar Foundation Board of Trustees.
Photo captions:
-Manolo Almunia.
-The card of José Félix Guerrero.
-The Eibar squad photo from 2001/02.