Ander Imaz soon saw it clearly. No one needed to explain it to him. He played ball better than soccer and on top of that he liked the fronton more than the soccer field. He jokes with the oiartzuarra at the gates of the final of the Couples Championship that awaits him in Bizkaia. «I tried football a little, more than anything because of my friends. I saw that it was not my thing. He sucked bench. The coach took the last five minutes out of me as a shock, but the goals didn’t come.”
Imaz walks through the streets and mountains of Oiartzun with Argi, her little Andalusian winery dog. “I have had him for about six years, he keeps me company and I am very fond of him.” It was one of his escape valves during the pandemic.
The only son of Mari Jose Retegi, a native of the Oiartzuarra neighborhood of Iturriotz, and Jexux Imaz, originally from Astigarraga, Ander grew up in a block of houses very close to the Madalessoro pediment, his second home. The deep fondness for baseball of one of his grandparents encouraged him to take new steps.
He began on any wall that would lend himself to it and signed up at the age of six in Oiarpe, where today he monitors the children’s pelota players. “He will have been in this task for about five years,” says Asier Retegi, head of the club. “The Aburuza, Landa, Zabaleta … And more have passed through his hands.”
Ander Imaz tries to instill among young people what he received from Juanito Lekuona, his first teacher, from former professional handist Joxe Joan Esnaola, the next, and from Anjel Ezponda, the last person who led his steps before the jump to professional hand of Asegarce, already in the senior category.
Esnaola and Ezponda agree on one of the values they appreciated in Ander from the first time they saw him at the fronton. “He is very ballsy. That comes from the factory. He looks fast in his posture and in the way he carries himself on the court ».
They soon appreciated in that short-statured boy “a desire to learn and grow as a pelota player” that has never abandoned him. “For a long time he was in a relationship with Andoni Ugalde”, Esnaola still remembers. “They were the two who stood out the most in a nice group of kids.” Ugalde also debuted as a professional, but with Aspe.
«Juanito Lekuona and I are going to Bilbao together on Sunday. We could not fail Ander, ”says Esnaola. «Juanito taught him from the age of six or seven. I was with slightly older pelotaris and I caught him with twelve. He learned to suffer as a child because he had to face taller and stronger kids. He countered it with a lot of effort. Physical inferiority forces you to develop other skills that ultimately favor your training as a pelota player. Within the lower categories, Ander got along with those in his category, among whom there were people stronger than him. We did not put him against older pelotaris. He lacked power. He quite did ».
Two years older than Jokin Altuna, Iker Irribarria and Axier Arteaga, Imaz belongs to that group of kids his age to whom the current regulations in school sports in Gipuzkoa forced them to look for competitions outside the territory. “We regularly attended tournaments organized in the Bidasoa basin, especially in the Bortziriak region,” recalls Esnaola. «We also went to Zizur and other places in Navarra».
air defense
There was a detail in Imaz’s game that Esnaola often noticed. She was playing the joke. «It was difficult for him to dominate the air game and more than once I told him: ‘You have a worse volley than Esnaola’. We laughed because my volley was not exactly good, quite the opposite. I admit that he has left me in a bad place because he has improved tremendously in recent years and today he offers enormous security when he defends air in that position. The current defender, whether he is a striker or not, is obliged to control that facet of the game.
Esnaola also notices an evident physical evolution in his former pupil: «In the club we had a physical trainer, Uriarte. He said of Ander that he was diligent. He lives the ball one hundred percent, to the fullest, and it shows ».
Ezponda shares that opinion. «In recent years there has been a physical change. In some of his statements these days I have read that he has gained five or six kilos since his debut in 2015. He moves quickly on the court and also endures. He begins and ends the same ».
Another of the workhorses of his coaches has been the left foot. Esnaola points out that «since I’ve known him he has shown the ability to delay the right ball from four. With his left foot he wasn’t bad, but he has progressed with that hand».
Oiarpe, the Imaz club, will organize a bus to travel to Bilbao. However, there is some discomfort with Baiko because his pelotari has only had 60 tickets when Altuna III and Martija, the Aspe finalists, have received 200 each for their fans. That lower number will cause them to be scattered in Bizkaia when it comes to cheering on Ander.
