Unai Emery Echegoyen is a professional Spanish footballer and coach. Known to fans as a coach of the Moscow “Spartak” and the Spanish “Seville”, in which Unai achieved an outstanding result - he won the Europa League for three consecutive years.
This article reviews the biography of Unai Emery.
Football career
Unai is a graduate of Real Sociedad Football Club. For him, the Spanish footballer spent six full seasons, after which he wandered around the lower clubs of Spain. Unai did not achieve much success as a football player, ending his professional career as a player at the age of 33.
Coaching career
The first club of Unai (as a mentor) was Lorca Deportiva, in which the Spanish specialist worked for two full-fledged seasons. In the first season, Unai helped the team enter the second league, taking fourth place in the championship.
The second season has become more successful. Under the leadership of the Spanish coach Unai Emery, Lorca took fifth place, and the coach himself was awarded the prize of the best coach of the season.
After a successful performance at Lorca, Unai was offered to take up a post in Almeria, who played in the second Spanish league. Unai was also able to achieve significant results with a rather weak team, leading “Almeria” to the big leagues. In the second season, the Spanish mentor helped Almeria gain a foothold in the top division.
After spending two successful seasons at Almeria, Emery resigned as head coach at the Spanish Valencia. “Bats” Unai trained four full season, although initially the contract was signed for only two years. Twice the “bats” took third place in the national championship, which allowed the club to play in the Champions League. The greatest success in European competition was reaching the semi-finals of the Europa League.
After Spain, Unai decided to try his hand at Russia, heading the Moscow Spartak. However, Unai was not particularly successful, because after five months of work, the Spanish specialist was fired, and Russian fans only shouted the “coach” to the Spaniard.
Just a month after the failure in Russia, the Spanish specialist returned to his homeland, where at the beginning of 2013 he headed Sevilla. In the next three seasons, Sevilla, under the leadership of a Spanish specialist, won the Europa League three times.
Such outstanding results led to an increase, and after leaving Sevilla, Unai headed the leading club in France - PSG. Having won most of the domestic tournaments in France in two years, the Parisian leadership decided to dismiss the mentor because of a failed game in European competition. Twice, PSG led by Unai Emery was unable to overcome the 1/8 Champions League final.
In the summer of 2018, Unai led the London Arsenal.
Personal life
In his spare time, the Spanish specialist thinks exclusively about football. Watching football matches on TV and learning all sorts of tactics from other mentors.