JosÃ© Mari Bakero

José Mari Bakero in May 2005

José María Bakero Escudero ( born February 11, 1963 in Goizueta ) is a former Spanish footballer and now football coach.

José Mari Bakero is one of the most successful players of the Spanish football history. He played for Real Sociedad and FC Barcelona together 483 league games and scored 139 goals. The Basque is thus División Rank 8 players with the most applications in the Primera. As a midfielder he won numerous titles with both clubs. In addition, he participated in several major tournaments with the Spanish national team.

Playing career

Real Sociedad

In 1980, with only 17 years, José Mari Bakero began his career with the Basque Tradition Club Real Sociedad. First, he played as a striker, but later mainly as an attacking midfielder. In the eight years in which he played in San Sebastián, he took his team two completely unexpected championships (1981, 1982), a Spanish Super Cup (1982) and one Spanish Cup in 1987. During his time at Real Sociedad, for he played 223 games, he became one of the best midfielders in the league.

FC Barcelona

In the summer of 1988 he changed to the top club FC Barcelona and although he was already eight years in professional business and won some titles, he was still very young when he came to the " Blaugrana " with 25 years. In the team of Johan Cruyff, he played with several other Basque players ( Txiki Begiristain, López Rekarte, Julio Salinas ) together. He was part of the " Dream Team " of FC Barcelona, which is partially demonstrated the opponents and denied the early 90 clearly dominated and five European finals. In Europe Champions Cup in 1991/92 he paved his team in the second round of the tournament with a 3-1 first goal in the second leg at the 1 FC Kaiserslautern, which fell in added time, the way the group stage and later to Wembley. There Barcelona defeated in the final of the tournament Sampdoria 1-0 and was the European Cup Winners ' Cup.

13 items stood at the end of his time in the great FC Barcelona for Bakero to book. In 1997 he left the club to end his career in Mexico at CD Veracruz. The stay was already after half a year has passed since he can not find his way in the league.

Internationally

For the Spanish national team, he played 30 games in which he hit seven times. His first game he completed on 14 October 1987 at 2-0 against Austria. He participated in three finals: at the European Championship in Germany in 1988, at the 1990 World Cup in Italy and at the 1994 World Cup in the USA.

Coaching career

His first job as head coach he practiced in the summer of 1999 at the Puebla FC, which he has edited for the first eight games in the summer of 1999, the Mexican Primera División tournament. Then Bakero was temporarily working in the coaching staff of FC Barcelona under Louis van Gaal. His first position as head coach in Spain, he took over during the 2004/ 05 season, succeeding Antonio Tapia at the second team of FC Malaga. He could reach the league in the Segunda División.

After the season, in August 2005, he took over the post of sporting director at Real Sociedad. In March 2006 he was appointed head coach of the first division Basque. After he reached only 2 of the possible 21 points from their first seven games of the season, but he was released in October of the same year.

From the end of 2007 he worked as an assistant coach at FC Valencia in the coaching staff of the Dutchman Ronald Koeman. After his release in April 2008, in which the entire coaching staff was disbanded, Bakero also had to leave the club. Mid-November 2009 he signed a contract with the Polish first division club Polonia Warsaw. After he was dismissed from Poland at the beginning of the 2010/11 season, he signed a contract with Lech Poznan. There he was fired after a 0-3 defeat in the match against Ruch Chorzów on 24 February 2012.