Zuhaitz Gurrutxaga (Elgoibar, 43 years old) is a superman without a cape, a realist who loves Javier Clemente, a footballer who hated playing in the First Division and enjoyed playing in the mud of the Second B, whom the Zamora fans adored; that he boasts of having received an elbow from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and is ashamed of having caused a penalty without Lionel Scaloni, now the coach of World Champion Argentina, touching him.
A successful stand-up comedian whom Marcelo Bielsa hired to prepare for an Athletic match against Espanyol that they lost by a landslide. He is a person who was saved from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) because, in addition to having professional help, he knew how to laugh at himself and his circumstances and now he puts it into a book, Runner-uphalf written with Ander Izagirre (San Sebastián, 47 years old), in which she gets completely naked.
He chats with EL PAÍS in a cafeteria in front of the Reale Arena, in San Sebastián, the Real Sociedad stadium where he played so many times, and remembers the games behind closed doors during the pandemic: “Some, how calm they were without an audience” , because he believes, and some colleagues have told him, he was not the only one who was terrified of failing in front of 40,000 people. “With the monologue, many former First Division soccer players with 300 games have come and told me that they had not found something funny, because they had also been afraid to go out on the field, because the murmuring was noticeable, especially at home. They have confessed to me that they will never tell it, but sometimes they didn't want to go out and play either.”
Zuhaitz, at least, had humor left. “The key to this book,” recalls Izagirre, “is that Zuhaitz has resorted to that, as he did with the monologues, and even when he had such serious problems, to hide them. He tried not to let his problems eat him up, humor is something very serious in this book, and it is more than a narrative strategy, it is a life strategy.”
Heartbreaking at times, laugh out loud at others, the book recounts his football life, 15 years as a professional, almost always suffering; rarely enjoying: “Yes, I was happy at Lemona, at Zamora or as a youth player. Probably where I enjoyed it the most was in Lemona, where there were 200 spectators every Sunday, and no journalists. Like when Covid. It would have gone well for me at that time,” he jokes. And he remembers how unnatural it is, for a footballer, to destroy instead of create. “Playing defense is not stupid. When you start playing football, when you are ten or twelve years old, you don't think that you want to defend, whatever, you think that you want to score goals and dribble,” he says. “There are many who, possibly because of the shortcomings we have, are put in as defenders, and what I wanted was to score goals, and I had fun, and from there I went on to destroy the game, to not lose and not fail.”
Gurrutxaga, who at the age of 15, when he was an Elgoibar youth player, shared a dressing room at Wembley with Casillas and Xavi Hernández, in a match against England, combined his last years as a footballer with music and monologues. “I had been doing them for a few years and telling experiences from the years I played in the First Division and I realized that it hooked people, that it showed what is not shown about football,” because, “there is a lot of talk about football, but He knows very little about what a footballer feels. I saw that people were interested, but I didn't have time to tell it all, and that's why I thought that a book could be a good way, but I didn't want to spoil it because I'm not a writer, so I thought of Ander, although I didn't expect him to tell me yes. And he told me so.”
Zuhaitz and Ander have not written a self-help book, that is not the objective: “They ask me to see if this book is healing for me, but no. I already did that process with close people, and with monologues, in front of the public, to whom I told about my hardships, or my failures, or my mental health problems.” They wrote it when the disease was under control. “I have reached the book, I am not saying that I am completely healthy, but almost. It is true that there were some episodes that Ander encouraged me to tell, that were more difficult, and that have taken a weight off my shoulders, but in terms of mental health, luckily I was already cured.”
Because, as Izagirre recalls, “Zuhaitz had already opened up, perhaps in some things not so profoundly. He did not suffer telling about his miseries, his fears, his insecurities, which he had already worked on, but he saw them as narrative material. He saw the bad things that happened to him as good stories to tell.”
Ander remembers that, “there are people who were very hard on him, some coaches, who almost amounted to workplace harassment, which could be a complaint, but he says that now, as a comedian, he thanks them. what he did [John] Toshack could tell him with resentment and pain about putting him as a lineman in training, but, on the contrary, he says that he thanks him for giving him that story.”
The coach who made him debut in the First Division with Real Sociedad was Javier Clemente. “He treated me well, with love, and I hope that is reflected in the book. It is what it is, it talks like it talks, but then he loved me a lot, supported me and bet on me, so much so that he made me a starter when he shouldn't have done so and I didn't want to be one.” They met later. “I hadn't seen him for years and he came to see a monologue.”
Recently, “we went to a cider house for dinner, through some friends. It was a Monday, it was raining, it was lazy, but how could I not go with Javi? ”She confesses. “We went to the cider house and people asked him, 'But Javier, have you met Zuhaitz at La Real?', and he answered: 'Coincided? But he even gave me a monologue,' and he was proud that I dedicate twenty minutes to my performance, and I spend more than 20 minutes on Javi taking me into consideration. He is one of the characters in my life. “I am very fond of him.”
In front of a monologue audience, Gurrutxaga does not feel the same as in a stadium. “The pressure that a field can exert on that of a theater audience is incomparable, and furthermore in the theater I come out with a studied text, that is proven, that works, and there are no variables, there is no wind, there is no rival. There are many things on a football field that are beyond your control, and that was what I couldn't stand,” he says.
In the 2002/03 season, Real Sociedad was one step away from winning the League. Zuhaitz had not played an official match for a year and his team was playing against Dépor. “I had severe OCD, totally overwhelmed, but who was I going to tell, the coach, the president?” And Raynald Denoueix started him. “I wasn't up to playing, but the way I felt, they should have given me the maximum score on Brand either The Basque Journalbecause if they knew how I was, in relation to how I played, they would have to say that I played a great game,” he claims.
“There is a moment in the area, and I was obsessed with not crossing the lines with my left foot first; Scaloni squeezes me, I let myself fall so as not to step on the line with that foot, and the referee calls a penalty.” And the cold sweats, because Kovacevic, in the locker room, had told him: “Gurru, if there is a penalty I will let you take it.” In the end he didn't do it, the forward threw it and missed it. But Zuhaitz remembers Scaloni: “I would like to give him a book.”
Few people knew of his suffering. His mother does. “Like almost all mothers, they find out everything. My mother is very much from her generation, what was special to her is her son. Sometimes she didn't understand. Poor thing has surely cried more times than I think, but there she has always been supporting me.” Also some companion. “We are talking about Igor Gabilondo. He wrote to me a few days ago to tell me that he liked him a lot and that he had shed a few tears. When I started shock therapy, which was in principle not compulsively cleaning my hands, and the man there, dosing me with soap after a workout. I had colleagues who were my allies and to whom I am very grateful.”
Organize things meticulously, make sure the oven was off, the faucet closed, the door locked. Repeatedly in a short time. “I have always thought that OCD has taken away a lot of my energy, but luckily it has never led me to become depressed in a dark place, always to anguish, but I have never had extreme ideas.” Thanks to humor. “Years ago they made fun of Benito Floro, who brought the first psychologist and now he is more normal. The player not only needs a physio, but sometimes also help of another kind,” because, “who prepares you at 20 years old to receive a whistle?”
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