Full Name: Ander Herrera Agüera
Date of Birth: 11/08/1989
Place of Birth: Bilbao
Nationality: ESP
Position: Central Midfielder
Clubs: Real Zaragoza, Athletic Club, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, Athletic Club, Boca Juniors
Ander Herrera is a Basque central midfielder who spent the bulk of his career playing for Athletic Club in Spain and Manchester United in England. He began his career with Real Zaragoza and also had spells with Paris Saint-Germain in France and Boca Juniors in Argentina. At his peak he won two caps for the Spanish national team.
Herrera was renowned as a versatile, all-round midfielder equally at home playing in a number ten role behind the forwards or in a more defensive number 6 role. He was energetic, tenacious and hard-working, a true box-to-box midfielder. Neat and tidy in possession, he also had an eye for a killer pass and chipped in with his fair share of goals.
Football in his blood
Ander Herrera was born into a family with a strong football heritage. His great-great-uncle, Graciano San Cristobal Larrinaga, played for Athletic Club in the 1928-29 season and his father, Pedro Herrera Sancristóbal, was a midfielder with Erandio, Salamanca, Real Zaragoza and Celta Vigo. His career highlight was winning the Copa del Rey with Real Zaragoza in 1986 when they beat Barcelona 1-0 in the final.
After he retired, he took on the role of a Sporting Director at Celta Vigo, so it was in Galicia that young Ander spent the first four years of his life. In 1993, the family moved to Zaragoza when Pedro became a Technical Secretary at Real Zaragoza and Ander spent the rest of his childhood growing up in Aragon.
Naturally he became a Real Zaragoza fan and he remembers watching on television as they won the European Cup Winners Cup against Arsenal in 1995. His parents had gone to Paris for the final and left the five-year-old Ander to stay with friends. By the time he turned twelve, he was himself part of the Real Zaragoza academy and was already beginning to stand out in youth tournaments.
As a fall-back, Ander Herrera studied journalism and law, but it soon became clear that he was going to make it as a professional footballer. That was underlined by his performances in the cadete category (for 15 & 16 year olds) in the 2004-05 season when he led Real Zaragoza to the national title, beating Real Madrid 3-1 in the final.
First steps at Zaragoza
The 2008-09 season heralded his major breakthrough into senior football. He was promoted from the youth team into the Real Zaragoza B squad at the start of the season and made his debut for them against Atlético Calatayud in the Tercera división, the regionalised fourth tier of Spanish football. However, he only spent half a season with the B team before catching the eye of first team boss Marcelino García Toral.
Real Zaragoza were playing in the Segunda División at the time, having been relegated from the top flight the previous season. They were pushing hard for an immediate return, but had lost two on the bounce and dropped to fourth place, just outside the automatic promotion spots when Herrera was called into the squad for a home fixture against Levante on the 1st of February 2009.
Marcelino called him off the bench to replace the Argentine left-winger Juan Pablo Caffa in the 65th minute with the game deadlocked at 1-1. Herrera’s introduction helped Zaragoza turn that stalemate into a 2-1 victory and he never looked back. From that point on he was involved in all but two of Zaragoza’s remaining matches and soon became a starter in his own right. His first goal came against Tenerife in early May and he followed it up with another in the very next game. A long unbeaten run saw Real Zaragoza climb back into third spot and seal promotion back to the Primera División at the first attempt.
Rapid development
Ander Herrera also made his debut for the Spain U-20 team in 2009 and he went to the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Egypt later that year. He was on the score-sheet twice in the group stage as Spain topped Group B with three wins, but they lost 3-1 to Italy in the Round of 16 and went home early. Following that tournament, Herrera was promoted to the Spain U-21 squad.
During the summer, Herrera had signed his first professional contract, a four-year deal tying him to Real Zaragoza until 2013. He quickly adapted to top flight football and made 30 La Liga appearances, scoring two goals in the 2009-10 season as Zaragoza finished 14th, four places above the relegation spots. They had flirted with relegation during the middle part of the season, which cost coach Marcelino his job, but José Aurelio Gay was brought in to steady the ship.
Gay was himself dismissed in November 2010 following a torrid start to the new season which saw Real Zaragoza winless in their first nine games and rock bottom at the turn of the year. They improved dramatically under Mexican manager Javier Aguirre to escape relegation on the final day with a 2-1 win at Levante. Herrera already knew that it was to be his final appearance for Zaragoza because he had signed a pre-contract agreement to join Athletic Club in the summer for a fee of €7.5 million. He had contributed two goals in 33 appearances during the season.
European Champion
By now, Herrera was a regular starter for the Spanish U-21 national selection under coach Luis Milla Aspas and he went to the 2011 U-21 Euros in Denmark at the end of the season. Drawn into Group B, they opened their campaign against Stuart Pearce’s England in Herning. It was a match full of future Manchester United and Athletic Club stars, with Herrera lining up alongside Juan Mata, David de Gea and Javi Martinez, with Mikel San José and Iker Muniain on the bench for Spain.
The England team contained Danny Welbeck, Tom Cleverley, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones plus a whole host of other famous names, but it was the diminutive Herrera who opened the scoring in the 14th minute. Martinez flicked on an Alcantara corner and Herrera was there at the far post to turn it into the net, although there was a suspicion of handball about it. Spain held on until the 88th minute when Kyle Walker played in Welbeck for a late equaliser which was fortunate not to be ruled offside.
Spain comfortably beat the Czechs and Ukraine to top the group, but needed extra time to see off Belarus in the semi-finals. They faced a Switzerland team containing Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka in the final in Aarhus. Herrera opened the scoring once again when he headed Dídac Vilà’s cross past Yann Sommer in the 41st minute. Fellow midfielder Thiago Alcántara sealed victory with a free-kick nine minutes from time. That 2-0 win in Aarhus gave Herrera the first major honour of his career and he was named in the team of the tournament to boot.
Stepping up with Bielsa’s Bilbao
Ander Herrera’s arrival at Athletic Club coincided with that of Argentinian coach Marcelo Bielsa, who had left his post at the helm of the Chilean national team earlier in 2011. He handed Herrera his debut in the opening match of the season, a UEFA Europa League qualifier at home to Trabzonspor. It finished 0-0 but the Basques were spared a tricky looking return leg in Turkey because Fenerbahçe were kicked out of European competition in the meantime due to a match-fixing scandal. Trabzonspor inherited their place in the Champions League and Athletic Club got a free pass into the Europa League.
They convincingly won Group F of that competition, ahead of RB Salzburg, PSG and Slovan Bratislava to take their European campaign into the new year. Meanwhile, they overcame a shaky start in La Liga to slowly climb the table with Herrera most commonly featuring in a central attacking midfield role. The fixtures started to pile up in the second half of the season as they competed on three fronts, which contributed to their patchy league form towards the end of the campaign. Bielsa had them playing his trademark high-energy brand of football, which was beautiful to behold, but hard to sustain with a match every three or four days.
The young Herrera was, however, perfectly suited to this style and he flourished under Bielsa. Their Europa league run took them to Old Trafford in the last sixteen where they pulled off a surprise 3-2 win against Sir Alex Ferguson’s team. They repeated the trick a week later at San Mames to put United out of Europe before dispatching Schalke 04 and Sporting Clube with similar swashbuckling football. That set up a final clash against Atlético Madrid in Bucharest.
Final frustration
Meanwhile, their Copa del Rey run had also taken them all the way to the final against Barcelona at the Estadio Vicente Calderón in Madrid. Their hugely entertaining and highly promising season all boiled down to those two showpiece occasions in May and two chances to end their 28 year trophy drought. Unfortunately, whether it was down to nerves or fatigue or inexperience, they just didn’t show up in either match, losing them both 3-0.
The season may have ended on a massive anticlimax, but Herrera had won many plaudits for his eye-catching performances and established himself as one of the key players at his new club. The 54 appearances that he made across all competitions that season would remain a career high and he also contributed four goals and eleven assists. His form made him an obvious choice for inclusion in Luis Milla Aspas’ squad for the 2012 Olympic Games in London that summer where Spain were among the favourites. He featured as a substitute in all three group games, but they underwhelmed with two defeats and a draw to crash out at the first hurdle.
Onwards and upwards with Valverde
Bielsa and Herrera’s second season at San Mames was much less successful and they struggled in every competition. Indifferent league form saw them never climb higher than 12th in the La Liga table, which is where they ultimately finished. They were however, eleven points better off than Herrera’s former club, Real Zaragoza, who he will have been sad to see finishing rock bottom and relegated to the Segunda División.
Athletic Club’s interest in the cup competitions was ended before Christmas with an ignominious defeat on away goals to neighbours Eibar in the Copa del Rey. Having negotiated two qualifying rounds, their Europa League group stage campaign was a disaster, with their only win coming against Ironi Kiryat Shmona on matchday 5. By then they had lost a double header against Olympique Lyonnais 2-1 at the Stade de Gerland and 3-2 at San Mames despite a goal from Herrera. A defeat away at Sparta Prague meant that Athletic Club were already eliminated before the final round of matches.
It was clear that things were no longer working out and Bielsa departed at the end of that 2012-13 season to be replaced by Ernesto Valverde. The managerial change precipitated an upturn in fortunes for the club and, without the distraction of European football, they were much more consistent in La Liga. So consistent, in fact, that they never dropped lower than sixth in the table and never rose higher than third. Their eventual fourth place finish in May 2014 was their highest since coming second in 1997-98 and also achieved Champions League qualification for the first time since then.
United finally get their man
However, Ander Herrera didn’t stick around in Bilbao for the eagerly anticipated Champions League campaign. Instead he signed for a club who had just failed to qualify for that competition for the first time in 17 years. Manchester United’s 7th place finish under David Moyes in 2013-14 was their lowest since coming 13th in 1989-90 and meant that they failed to qualify for any of the European competitions for the first time since English clubs were readmitted after their five season ban ended in 1990.
Moyes had attempted to sign Herrera the previous summer but United refused to meet the player’s buyout clause and Athletic Club rejected the offer on transfer deadline day. Nine months later, their interest in the player was rekindled and new manager Louis Van Gaal made Herrera his first signing upon taking the reins at Old Trafford. This time United were convinced to pay the €36 million that triggered Herrera’s release clause and the twenty-four-year-old signed a four-year contract with an option to extend for a fifth season.
Finding his feet at Old Trafford
Herrera made his Manchester United debut in the opening Premier League game of the season, an underwhelming 2-1 defeat at home to Swansea City. A minor injury kept him out of the next two fixtures before he returned to face QPR at Old Trafford with United still seeking their first win under Van Gaal. A Di Maria free-kick set them on the way and then Herrera bagged his first United goal to double the lead in the 36th minute. It came after a strong run from Di Maria down the left before Rooney laid the ball off to Herrera to stroke it home with his right foot from just inside the D.
Herrera returned the favour eight minutes later to set up Rooney for United’s third goal and record his first assist for the club. United went on to win 4-0, spoiling Rio Ferdinand’s emotional return to Old Trafford, having joined the R’s that summer. Ander Herrera scored again in the following match, a topsy-turvy 5-3 defeat at Leicester City, but he took a while to fully establish himself as a regular starter under Van Gaal and was in and out of the line-up during the first half of the season.
However, from mid-February onwards he started every match and it turned out to be his most productive league campaign in front of goal. His six Premier League strikes were a career high and he netted another couple in the FA Cup. United’s 4th place finish in 2014-15 was enough to get them back into the Champions League, so Herrera would finally get his first taste of Europe’s premier cup competition.
Up for the cup
Unfortunately his Champions League debut didn’t go particularly well, with United losing 2-1 at PSV Eindhoven in their opening match. They ultimately finished third in Group B behind the the Dutch outfit and VfL Wolfsburg to drop into the Europa League where they were ignominiously dumped out by Liverpool in the last sixteen.
Things didn’t go much better in the league, where Herrera was regularly rotated by Van Gaal. He made 27 appearances but only 17 starts, scoring three times as United finished fifth, missing out on Champions League qualification on goal difference to Manchester City. The FA Cup proved to be their salvation and Herrera was instrumental in their run to the final, providing assists in the fifth round, quarter-final and semi-final. They faced Crystal Palace in the decider at Wembley and even though Herrera remained on the bench throughout the 2-1 extra-time win, he still picked up the first major club honour of his career.
Mourinho’s man
Famously, lifting the FA Cup wasn’t enough to keep Louis Van Gaal in his job and he was replaced by José Mourinho in the summer. That was good news for Herrera as the Portuguese manager took an instant shine to him, making him his third most used player during the 2016-17 campaign. His fifty appearances across all competitions were second only to Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba.
That 2016-17 season was probably when Herrera reached the peak of his powers as a player. He added three more trophies to his collection and, at twenty-seven years old, received his first call-up to the full Spain squad. It all began at Wembley in August when they beat champions Leicester City 2-1 in the FA Community Shield in Mourinho’s first official match in charge. United followed that up with wins in their opening three Premier League matches to complete a perfect first month under the Portuguese boss.
International debut
Form in September was a little more patchy for United and they slipped down the table somewhat, but Herrera’s performances had caught the eye of Spain manager Julen Lopetegui. When a couple of players dropped out of his initial squad for the October international break, Lopetegui handed Herrera a late call-up as a replacement and he sat on the bench for World Cup qualifiers against Italy and Albania.
The following month he was included in the squad once again and this time he made his full international debut as a substitute in a friendly against England at Wembley. He came on to replace Thiago Alcántara in the 56th minute with Spain trailing 2-0. His introduction helped turn the game in Spain’s favour and they fought back to draw 2-2 with late goals from Iago Aspas and Isco.
Wembley winner again
By the turn of the year, United were sixth in the Premier League and going well in the cup competitions, having made the UEFA Europa League knockout phase and the League Cup semi-finals. They overcame Hull City over two legs in the latter competition to set up a final against Southampton at Wembley in late February.
Having missed the second leg of United’s 5-0 aggregate win over Saint-Étienne in midweek through suspension, Herrera was back in the starting line-up for the League Cup final. He lined up alongside Paul Pogba in central midfield and helped United to a 2-0 lead with goals from Ibrahimović and Lingard before a brace from Manolo Gabbiadini either side of the interval brought the Saints level. It looked to be heading towards extra time until Herrera crossed for Ibrahimović to head in an 87th minute winner and send the trophy back to Old Trafford.
The following month, Herrera won his second Spain cap in a friendly against France at the Stade de France where he came off the bench to replace Koke in the 74th minute of a 2-0 win. Ultimately it would prove to be the final appearance of his short-lived international career. In another era he may well have won many more caps, but he had the misfortune to be playing at a time when Spain were blessed with an embarrassment of riches in his position.
European success caps a fine season
Domestically, United were unable to rise higher than sixth in the Premier League table but they marched on in the Europa League, edging past Anderlecht and Celta Vigo in the quarter and semi-finals. The final pitted them against Peter Bosz’s Ajax in Stockholm. Herrera was again paired with Pogba in central midfield against a team containing future United stars Matthijs de Ligt and André Onana with Donny Van Der Beek on the bench.
Goals from Pogba and Mkhitaryan gave United a 2-0 win and Herrera was declared man of the match as United won the Europa League for the first time in their history, making it a cup double in the 2016-17 season. Herrera’s fifty appearances (44 starts, 6 as a substitute) made it his busiest season for United and he weighed in with eleven assists and two goals. His performances earned him the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award.
Second best
The 2017-18 campaign began with defeat to Real Madrid in the European Super Cup final in Skopje, but they started strongly in the Premier League. Six wins and two draws in their opening eight fixtures put them in second place and they held that position for most of the season, eventually finishing ‘best of the rest’ a distant nineteen points behind runaway champions Manchester City.
Runners-up was also to be their fate in the FA Cup where they met Antonio Conte’s Chelsea in the final at Wembley. Herrera started on the right of a midfield diamond, with Matic at its base, Pogba on the left and Lingard at the apex. It was a tight game in which United dominated the possession and a single goal proved to be the difference. A penalty converted by Eden Hazard in the 22nd minute settled the tie that was notable as the first FA Cup final to use the video assistant referee (VAR) system. That was no help to United as it ruled out a potential equaliser by Alexis Sánchez in the second half.
The improved league form and FA Cup run may have served to paper over a few cracks during that season. United’s return to the Champions League ended in a disappointing defeat to Sevilla in the Round of 16 and their League Cup defence unravelled at Bristol City. The arrival of Matic meant that Herrera faced increased competition for minutes on the pitch and his contribution was reduced to 25 starts plus 14 appearances off the bench.
Frustrating final season at Old Trafford
Those numbers continued to wane the following season, during which he was hampered by a couple of injuries. That 2018-19 campaign started disastrously with manager José Mourinho getting the sack a few days before Christmas to be replaced by Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Herrera didn’t get a proper run in the starting line-up until December, when he returned to full fitness and finally found some consistency. He was a key part of the revival under Solskjær and even won the Manchester United Player of the Month award for February 2019 before a hip injury disrupted his momentum.
That knock, picked up in a 0-0 draw against Liverpool at Old Trafford in late February, was the beginning of the end of Herrera’s United career. Sadly, he only featured four more times in a United shirt, his final appearance coming as a substitute in a 1-1 draw at Huddersfield on the 5th of May. United finished in sixth place and Herrera announced that he would be leaving on a free transfer when his contract expired at the end of June. His final United stats tallied up to 189 appearances (140 starts) and 20 goals in all competitions.
Guaranteed trophies
Ander Herrera’s destination was France, where he signed up to the Qatari sportswashing project at Paris Saint-Germain on a five-year contract. German coach Thomas Tuchel needed a like-for-like replacement for Adrien Rabiot, who had left to join Juventus, and Herrera fitted the bill. However, he faced stiff competition for a place in the starting line-up. His compatriot Pablo Sarabia and Everton’s Idrissa Gueye were both recruited for big money to further bolster PSG’s options in central midfield. Lest we forget, the squad already featured the likes of Marco Verratti, Leandro Paredes and Julian Draxler in that position, so they were spoilt for choice.
Needless to say, the decision to join this financially doped super squad did wonders for Herrera’s personal palmarès over the following few seasons as they steamrollered their way to trophy after trophy. He played the role of one of the workhorses to win the ball and feed it to the ‘galactiques’ such as Mbappé, Cavani, Neymar and later Lionel Messi, who would terrorise the opposition defences.
Industrious players such as Herrera, Verratti and Gueye were the legs and lungs of the team and had to literally do the running for their more illustrious colleagues, whose goal output meant that their lack of tracking-back was by and large indulged by a succession of coaches. It was a dysfunctional system made viable by the sheer gulf in class between PSG and their domestic rivals, but it often came unstuck against the better teams in Europe.
Denied a clean sweep by Bayern
That first season at PSG was greatly disrupted for Herrera on a personal level by calf, hamstring and thigh injuries, and on a wider level by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, he still came out of it with four trophies, staring with the Trophée des Champions, which he won on his debut with a 2-1 victory against Rennes in Shenzhen. The Ligue 1 season was controversially abandoned at the end of February due to Covid and PSG were declared champions. They also won both cups, beating Saint-Étienne 1-0 in the Coupe de France final and luckily scraping past Lyon 6-5 on penalties after a 0-0 draw in the last ever Coupe de la Ligue final. Herrera was one of the scorers in the shootout.
For the first time in their short history, PSG also made it to the Champions League final in 2020. They faced Bayern Munich at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon and Herrera lined up alongside Marquinhos and Paredes in central midfield. It was a tight game with Bayern’s pairing of Leon Goretzka and Herrera’s old sparring partner Thiago Alcántara battling for supremacy in the centre of the park. Former PSG academy graduate Kingsley Coman eventually broke the deadlock for Bayern midway through the second half and Herrera was replaced by Draxler thirteen minutes later as PSG chased an equaliser that never materialised.
Old Trafford reunion
The 2020-21 season was Ander Herrera’s most consistent campaign for PSG. He managed 45 appearances across all competitions, up from 22 in his injury hit previous season. However, despite retaining the Coupe de France and the Trophée des Champions they were unusually fallible in Ligue 1 under Tuchel and subsequently Mauricio Pochettino. They missed out on the title by a point, finishing second behind Christophe Galtier’s Lille.
PSG’s Champions League group stage included a pair of fixtures against Manchester United. They lost 2-1 to the Red Devils at the Parc des Princes on the opening match day, but got revenge on Herrera’s return to Old Trafford. Played behind closed doors in December due to ongoing pandemic restrictions, the match was level at 1-1 when Herrera entered the fray, replacing Paredes in the 65th minute. His introduction helped swing it in PSG’s favour and they ran out 3-1 winners. PSG made it all the way to the semi-finals where they came unstuck against Manchester City.
The arrivals of Danilo Pereira and Georginio Wijnaldum meant that there was more competition than ever for places in the PSG midfield in the 2021-22 season. Herrera still managed a respectable 28 appearances across all competitions, but was only their sixth most used central midfielder. They crashed out of the cup competitions early on and Herrera missed a large part of the second half of the season, having fallen out of favour. He featured in the final two games as PSG celebrated another Ligue 1 title, but probably began to feel that his days at the club were numbered as he approached his 33rd birthday that summer.
Back to Bilbao
Christophe Galtier was installed as the new PSG manager in July 2022 and Herrera wasn’t part of his plans, so the Basque midfielder began to explore his options. There’s one club in particular that’s always on the lookout for top Basque players due to their Basques only policy, so a return to Athletic Club was mooted. By coincidence, the man who sold Herrera to Manchester United eight years earlier, Ernesto Valverde, had just been reinstalled as Athletic Club manager and he was keen to renew their association..
Therefore, a loan move from PSG back to Athletic Club was agreed in August 2022 with an option to make the deal permanent. His ‘second debut’ for Athletic came as a substitute in a 3-2 win against Rayo Vallecano at San Mames Barria on matchday six of La Liga. He was sent off in his third game back and then, following a one match ban, made the first start of his second spell in Bilbao on matchday ten, a 2-2 draw at Getafe. The loan move was made permanent at the end of the January transfer window but the remainder of his season was punctuated by injury absences. In total he managed twenty appearances as Athletic finished in 8th place and just missed out on a European spot.
Epic cup run
2023-24 proved to be a much more memorable campaign, which culminated in Athletic Club finally ending their long major trophy drought. Herrera was more consistently fit and was only side-lined by a pair of hamstring injuries that kept him out for a month apiece in autumn and early spring. He managed 23 La Liga appearances as Athletic improved to finish fifth in the table. However, it’s the epic Copa del Rey run that will go down in Athletic Club folklore.
They dispatched UE Rubí and CD Cayón in the early rounds before Christmas and comfortably won Basque derbies against Eibar and Alavés in January before meeting Barcelona in the quarter-finals. A packed house at San Mames saw Athletic take an early lead through Guruzeta only for the Catalans to turn it around with goals from Lewandowski and Yamal before half time. Sancet restored parity early in the second half and it stayed that way until the final whistle. Herrera came off the bench for extra time, replacing Beñat Prados in central midfield. His fresh legs helped swing the game in Athletic’s favour and goals from the Williams brothers sealed a famous win.
The semi-final was a two-legged affair against Atletico de Madrid. Herrera played the last half hour of the 1-0 first leg win away in Madrid but missed the second leg through injury. However, his team mates did him proud with a 3-0 triumph to set up a final against RCD Mallorca. The final, at La Cartuja stadium in Seville, was a reunion of sorts for Herrera as Mallorca were managed by none other than Javier Aguirre, the Real Zaragoza coach who had sold him to Athletic some eleven years earlier.
Glory and la gabarra
Ander Herrera was named among the substitutes for the final and looked on as Athletic fell behind to a Dani Rodríguez goal in the 21st minute but fought back via Oihan Sancet shortly after the interval. It was a nervy encounter with Athletic enjoying the lion’s share of the possession and creating the most chances but unable to find a winner through the ninety minutes and extra time. Herrera remained on the bench throughout and had to watch the penalty shoot-out from the side-line. Fortunately Raúl García, Iker Muniain, Mikel Vesga and Álex Berenguer kept their cool from the spot and the trophy headed back to Bilbao for the first time since 1984.
A few days later, back in Bilbao, over a million fans bedecked in red and white lined the banks of the Nervión river to see the victory parade on the famous barge ‘la gabarra’. Scenes that hadn’t been witnessed for forty years. Herrera was truly privileged to be a part of it in the twilight of his career and he was quoted as saying that it felt “incomparable to anything” he had experienced. At the end of the season, he extended his contract to stay on at Athletic for another year despite rumours of a return to his boyhood club, Real Zaragoza.
In the first half of the 2024-25 campaign Herrera was mainly used as a substitute due to the emergence of Mikel Jauregizar in addition to the competition from Galarreta, Prados and Vesga for playing time in central midfield. A 1-0 home win in the derby against Real Sociedad in late November turned out to be his final La Liga appearance for Athletic Club, as he picked up another muscle injury shortly afterwards that kept him out of action until the turn of the year.
A last hurrah in Argentina
Herrera returned for a farewell Copa del Rey outing away at Logroñés on the fourth of January, which Athletic won 4-3 on penalties after a 0-0 draw. That proved to be the swansong of his second spell in the red and white stripes. During the January transfer window the opportunity arose to join Boca Juniors one a one-year contract and Herrera, now 35 years old, was keen to experience playing outside of Europe before hanging up his boots. He put pen to paper and Athletic allowed him to move on a free transfer.
Herrera went straight into the Boca first team and his adventure in Argentina began with a routine cup win against CD Argentino followed by a 0-0 draw against Argentinos Juniors at the legendary Bombonera stadium three days later. Unfortunately he suffered yet another muscle injury in the latter match that kept him out for almost a month. He was back in time to feature in the second leg of their disappointing Copa Libertadores exit at the hands of Alianza Lima in late February and play in another four league games before muscle issues struck him down once more.
Fit again in time for the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup in June, Herrera lined up for Boca against Benfica in their opening Group C fixture at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. However, his injury misfortune struck again and he was forced off after only twenty minutes. To add insult to injury, he was also sent off just before half-time for arguing with the officials on the side-line.
Legacy
The ever more frequent injury problems may well mean that Herrera chooses to bring down the curtain on his long and distinguished playing career in the not too distant future. When that time comes, he’ll be remembered as a fine all-round midfielder who won trophies everywhere he went.
His place in history is assured as the first (and so far only) player to have represented both Athletic Club and Manchester United. In other MUACOL related trivia, he was also the first player to be directly transferred between two MUACOL clubs and remains the most expensive transfer between any of them to date. A true MUACOL legend!
Ander Herrera Links:
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