Athletic Club Bilbao - The Abidal Effect

Hello, I'm Niloroji and this is my first ever story on fmscout. I plan for this to be a long term story in which I have placed Eric Abidal in charge of Athletic Club Bilbao, a job which he undertook upon himself to take after realising playing in Greece was not for him and he wished to move back to Spain, where he spent a lot of his playing career.

I chose Abidal as a manager as he is a strong willed person, who has survived cancer to continue playing football at the age of 34. I believe this kind of strength and determination could really work well in a managing role.

I hope you enjoy. Happy reading!

Today Eric Abidal was announced as the new manager of Athletic Club Bilbao after a length search process. Abidal was revealed at a press conference at around 2:00pm today, in which he answered various questions surrounding his decision to quit a playing role at Olympiakos and take up a managing position in Spain, away from the club he previously played for, FC Barcelona. But now we at the club website have an EXCLUSIVE interview with the manager himself.

Greetings Eric. How are you?

I'm fine thank you. I guess you could say I've never been better! I'm really glad to be back in Spain and around old friends.

At the tender age of only 34, do you think you'll struggle to retain respect from the players?

Even though I'm a young manager, I spent my time during recovery coaching and helping at Barcelona B so I do have a little experience. I think people are well aware of who I am and what I command and expect on and off the pitch, so I don't think I will struggle to get any respect at all. I believe the younger players will look up to me, and the players closer to my own age will look at me as a friend as well as a manager. However, I don't wish to alienate the players and there will be a strict regime put in place. I want to create a legacy for my children to hear about when I'm grey and old.

You're joining a very tight nit group of staff, are you going to be bringing in any of your own staff and offloading some of the clubs current coaches?

I've been in and around the club for a while before the announcement and have relieved some of the staff I deemed surplus of their jobs, with compensation of course. I've brought in some friends with me who I believe are well up to the job. Joining me will be René Meulensteen, Paul Scholes, Joel Bats and someone I respect very highly, Ivan Carminati

And finally, will you be bringing any new faces to the squad?

I have some ideas but I doubt I will be able to do anything in this first season. Obviously some players will leave and some will be loaned out. But don't expect too much in the transfer market, I have a lot of young talent at my disposal and I plan to use it.

Great idea using Abidal, looking forward to seeing how this progresses

Firstly welcome to the FM Scout family, wishing you the best on this story, I hope you can create a great squad with Bilbao just beware of the Basque rule man!

A very good pre-season for Athletic Club Bilbao in which they conceded one goal and scored twelve. Veteran striker Aritz Aduriz scored a number of goals, two of which came from the spot where he powered the ball into the net. However, forward Ibai Gómez played in each of the games, assisting, if not scoring in all of the games. Bilbao now face Zenit in the Champions Cup qualifying round before their campaign begins.