Pedro Pablo Areso Aramburu

Pedro Pablo Areso Aramburu (29 June 1911 – 1 December 2002) was a Spanish footballer who played as a defender for Real Betis and FC Barcelona in Spain, and for Tigre and River Plate in Argentina. He also played for the Spain national team on three occasions in 1935.

As a manager, he took over teams in Spain, Portugal, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile,

Playing career Pedro Areso was born on 29 June 1911 in Ordizia, Gipuzkoa.

Areso was signed by Real Betis in October 1932, making his debut a few days later, on 12 October, in the 1932–33 Mancomunado Centro-Sur regional championship against CD Nacional de Madrid at the El Parral field in Madrid. The following year, goalkeeper Joaquín Urquiaga and defender Serafín Aedo joined Betis, thus forming the famous defensive triplet that was the basis of Betis' historic league title in 1934–35, conceding a mere 7 goals in the entire tournament.

During the Civil War, Areso and Aedo were part of the Basque Country national team that was organized by the Basque government of José Antonio Aguirre to play various friendly matches in Europe and later in America. After the end of the tour, he settled in Argentina and returned to Spain in 1945, while Aedo stayed forever in Mexico. He then moved to neighboring Portugal, to take charge of Atlético de Portugal, a first division team that was in a delicate situation, but Areso managed to put together a homogeneous, magnificent team, which rose to third place, so he received tempting offers from Benfica and Belenenses, but Atlético did not let him leave. However, he had a stint with Vitória Setúbal before moving to South America.

After Portugal, Areso went on to coach teams in Venezuela (Deportivo Vasco and Loyola SC, Argentina (Tigre and Dock Sud) and Chile (Unión Española and Deportes La Serena. In the later, he guided Deportes La Serena to the 1960 Copa Preparación and got the promotion to the Chilean Primera División in 1961. In 1963, he was hired by Español as a technical director, Nueva Chicago and Sarmiento de Junín in Argentina and Unión Española again (1969–70) and Rangers de Talca (1972–74) in Chile.

Later life and death Areso was a central character in the Basque novel Ez dadila eguzkia sartu (Let not the sun go down).

Areso died on 1 December 2002, at the age of 91.