Eibar, and the day David Silva's sporting gesture cost them promotion

The last time José Luis Mendilibar was Eibar coach he had David Silva playing for him. Now Silva is one of the best in the world and Eibar are the second best team in Spain according to the league table, which as everyone knows, doesn’t lie (except after just two games, when it lies like a Spanish politician with a Swiss bank account).

Who cares? Not the Eibar supporters, who much like the followers of Leicester, Chievo and Heracles Almelo, are thinking: ‘If we can just keep this run going for another 30 weeks, we’ll be in the Champions League next season’.

The mighty Eibar have won their opening two fixtures and only Celta are higher in the table. And all this after they were relegated last season only to be reinstated as Elche were sent down for not paying their bills.

Mendilibar took over in the summer, returning to the club he managed in the 2004-05 season when he had the 18-year-old Silva playing in midfield on loan from Valencia.

“He’s playing better than ever,” he says of Silva’s current form. And he tells the story of how the Manchester City star had yet to fully develop his ultra-competitive streak back in 2005.

When he was clean through on goal in injury-time of a promotion six-pointer with the score at 1-1 he saw a rival down injured and stunned his team-mates by kicking the ball out for a throw-in.

“I didn’t say anything to him and neither did the other players,” says Mendilibar. “Not many players would have done that and he was praised for his fair play.”

It was five games before the end of the season and had Eibar won they might have gone up. As it was they could only draw on the last day and finished fourth.

Silva is a little more ruthless now but he has not forgotten his former boss and last year he made Mendilibar a guest in his house and in his private box at the Etihad as the Spanish coach spent some time in England observing the work of coaches, such as Roberto Martinez, and improving his English.

Mendilibar says Silva is welcome back to Eibar’s 6,300-seater stadium whenever he can make it. It hasn’t changed much since he was last there – still penned in by its spectacular surroundings. The club has moved some sizeable mountains in its 75-year history but the one behind the main stand preventing any great ground renovation can’t be shifted.

The pitch is narrower than almost every other in the top flight and with the supporters so close to the players, Eibar can be an uncomfortable away trip although there are no cold showers and flat footballs for the visitors – it’s not Plough Lane circa 1985.

The dressing room facilities, says Mendilibar, are as good as they are elsewhere in the league and the slow drip down of finances has meant that of the 14 new signings made this summer, many have been offered two- or three-year contracts giving the club some stability.

Some of those 14 new signings did not speak Spanish when they turned up. When bigger clubs complain that lucrative pre-season tours play havoc with preparations they have nothing on Mendilibar who had to lean on his coaching assistant’s grasp of German to tell new recruits from the Bundesliga which pegs to hang their coats on when they turned up just days before the season started.

Deadline day was all about hoping no one would leave. And international break has been business as usual with only Izet Hajrović and Eddy Silvestre away playing for Bosnia and Azerbaijan respectively.

Despite the obvious financial difficulties Eibar were still one of the first clubs to support football’s Syrian-refugee fundraising efforts. For every ticket sold for their next home game against Atletico Madrid on September 19 they will give five euros to the cause.

If Atletico beat Barcelona at the Vicente Calderon this weekend and Eibar continue their 100 per cent record away to Malaga, that fixture will be a meeting of the league’s top two teams. And yes, Mendilibar has already done the decent thing and pinned the current table on the dressing room wall.