Athletic Club overwhelmed Leioa in their second preseason friendly under Edin Terzic, running out to a lopsided scoreline with a first-half surge and finishing the job after the break. Guruzeta helped himself to a hat-trick, and Navarro, Djaló and Hierro each added a brace, the kind of scoreboard that flatters attackers and tells a coach very little on its own.

The more revealing part of the day was on the bench. Terzic travelled to Leioa with 24 players, and two midfielders, Galarreta and Beñat Prados, did not play a single minute. Both had featured earlier in the week against Derio, so the decision to hold them back was about workload management rather than a verdict on their form.

Reading a friendly correctly

For US coaches, this is a clean case study in how to interpret preseason. A seven-goal friendly against lower-level opposition is not a measure of how good a team is. It is a controlled environment for building fitness, testing combinations and distributing minutes across a large group. The scoreline is almost incidental.

What matters is the plan behind the selection. Terzic played some men, rested others, and rotated the load across two matches in a week. That is deliberate periodisation: no player carries too much too early, and everyone gets exposure without anyone being pushed into a soft-tissue injury before the season has even started.

Managing minutes at youth level

The lesson transfers directly to youth coaching, where the temptation to chase results in summer tournaments is strong. A young body that plays every minute of every friendly in July is far more likely to break down in September. Spreading minutes, sitting players who trained heavily earlier in the week, and treating the scoreline as secondary are all habits worth copying.

It also models honest communication. Galarreta and Prados sitting out after playing midweek is a normal, explainable coaching decision, not a demotion. Youth coaches who tell players clearly why they are being rested, and connect it to a plan, keep trust intact in a way that arbitrary benching never does.

What Athletic are building

Terzic is still early in shaping his Athletic side, and preseason is where identity gets installed before the games count. The goals against Leioa will be forgotten quickly. The pattern of how minutes and load were managed is the part that hints at how the season will be run.

For coaches watching from the US, the takeaway is to look past the scoreline. The most useful information in any friendly is usually in the substitutions and the players who never leave the bench, because that is where the coaching plan actually lives.