He left other games early, too - inventing injuries to escape, the pressure becoming too much. Yet that wasn't something he would think often. Secretly, he says, he was thinking: Zuhaitz, you've played a blinder here. Faked it, which would be a recurring theme - something he would end up doing for too many years. Sent off in the 78th minute, he protested, complained, shook his head and looked as upset as he could. The debutant did what he was told - there's a moment when he pauses the screen and hones in on Hasslebaink's face, a bewildered stare that suggests what the hell is this guy doing?! - until the inevitable happened.

Hasselbaink was arguably Spain's best striker at the time, scorer of 33 goals that year.

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'And trust me,' Zuhaitz recalls Clemente telling the team, 'we're the winners in that deal.' Twice over, in fact: they lose Hasselbaink, we lose Gurrutxaga.

Zuhaitz opens his show by explaining how Javier Clemente, the famously feisty, straight-talking former Spain manager, gave him his debut with a simple instruction: Don't do anything at all, still less play football, except follow Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink everywhere and not let him get a touch. 'And it's even harder to imagine me as a footballer when you see me there.' Behind him, a screen shows some 'highlights' from his career.Īnd so it begins. He's currently doing a two-month run at the Teatro Reina Victoria in Madrid. 'It's hard to imagine me as a footballer when you see me standing here on this stage,' he says at the start of his latest stand-up routine.

There is a little bit of artist license for comic effect, but this is as close to reality from inside the game as you're ever going to get. Well, Zuhaitz Gurrutxaga says, 95% of it is. He gave up and became a comedian instead. Courtesy of Zuhaitz Gurrutxagaĭid you hear the one about the footballer who got sent off on his debut and scored two goals the day he got his first, and last, game for his country? Gurrutxaga's reinvention as a comedian has not only helped him process the struggles of his soccer career, but has helped him find peace and purpose that LaLiga didn't necessarily present.

The last stand lyrics