Unax: Promising Future & Potential

The name of Unax Landa has been ringing loudly in the amateur field for years. It was like that Real Sociedad cadet or youth player that everyone has heard about and whom they see succeeding in the first team. His conditions are obvious, even more so when one sees him unfold on the field with the naturalness and elegance of someone who was born with privileged innate qualities. What not everyone knows is that they are accompanied by a capacity for work and a tenacity that predicts a successful future for him, now that he has made the leap to professionalism with Baiko.

«The steps he has to climb will be a little more complicated each time because this is already the elite. He has many qualities, also a lot of potential and we’ll see,” Asier Retegi, his coach in his junior, cadet and youth stage at the Oiarpe de Oiartzun club cautiously points out, because in the children’s years he passed through the hands of Jon Ander Imaz. «Everyone in the town has had high hopes for him for a long time. As I usually say, this kid was already a professional before he debuted. He is a very dedicated boy, very hard-working. He is even getting his degree,” he comments, referring to the double degree in Physical Education and Teaching that he is studying at the University of Deusto, in Donostia. «On his part he is going to give everything and I suppose that if things go well for him in terms of injuries and he has a little luck, we all see a great future for him. How far can it go? Well we’ll see. You don’t have to put pressure on yourself. You have to enjoy and whatever comes, will come,” he adds.

“Pleasant and very nice,” Landa “is a very loved and appreciated kid,” details Retegi. “He was always very tall, he always had those endless arms,” ​​he remembers. «You could see that he really liked the ball and that he wanted to learn. I listened to the advice and tried to apply it. “He is a very smart kid, his head has always been thinking about the ball and he has applied himself a lot.”

These conditions have meant that Landa has been “a very easy kid to train because you rarely had to repeat what he had to do. I saw it and applied it. “I learned quickly.”

Among its many qualities, Retegi highlights “the punch. Other ball players pump the ball and it seems like they slow it down a lot, but when Unax hits the middle of the front it does a lot of damage because the ball is going at a different speed. With both hands. And then it is very elegant. “He has class.”

Obviously, he still has many things to polish and he is working on it. «In recent years he has improved behind the seven because before he had less control. He loses fewer balls and is becoming more consistent in his game,” analyzes Retegi. “He is improving a lot in that aspect but he has to continue improving to be even more consistent because in professionals you have to lose little ball.” Even more so in Baiko, where the competition with defenders like Mariezkurrena II, Albisu, Imaz or Iztueta is fierce. “Now there is a good batch of defenders in Baiko, but he has to make his way and if he does his things well, little by little he will open up a place.”

He has “suffered a lot” at the hands

With countless triumphs in the amateur field, not everything has been a bed of roses for the Oiartzuarra defender who also had very bad years. «He has suffered a lot from his hands, especially in his youth stage and in his first senior year. He had two or three years when he suffered a lot and had a hard time because he couldn’t play many games. He suffered with his right hand especially, which led people to think that he was left-handed because he hit him terribly with his left foot. What they didn’t know was that his right was hit and that with his right he hit him even harder,” he recalls. «He did a lot of his part to turn that around and he made tacos a lot of times. He has fought a lot, he has had a hard time and that is why we are all much more happy about his jump,” he explains proudly because although Landa “has physical qualities that other kids don’t have, that does not mean that he has earned it because he has worked a lot. Getting there has been his merit.”

In short, Unax «is one of those kids that we like to have in the club because without saying anything he does everything he can. He has been a very integrated kid in the club and the truth is that it has been a joy to have him. He has given us a lot and we are all very happy for him. He deserves it,” concludes Retegi.