José Agustín Aranzábal Askasibar (23 July 1946 – 30 December 2020), known as Gaztelu, was a Spanish footballer who played as a midfielder. He spent his entire career with

Real Sociedad Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D., more commonly referred to as Real Sociedad (; ''Royal Society''), La Real in Spanish, Erreala in Basque, is a Spanish professional sports club in the city of San Sebastián, Basque Country, founded on 7 Septem ...

, playing 308 competitive games and scoring 33 goals.

Club career

Gaztelu was born in

Bergara es, vergarés, vergaresa , population_note = , population_density_km2 = auto , blank_name_sec1 = Official language(s) , blank_info_sec1 = BasqueSpanish , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 ...

, Gipuzkoa. As a young child, he received his nickname, meaning castle in '' Euskera'', after a farm owned by his aunt.Agustín Aranzábal “Gaztelu”
Rincón del Forero, 21 March 2009 (in Spanish) He signed with

in 1965 from his local club and, after just one season with the reserves, was promoted to the first team at the age of 20. Gaztelu made his debut in La Liga on 8 October 1967, playing the full 90 minutes in a 0–0 away draw against Sevilla FC. He scored his first goal in the competition on 17 November of the following year, in another draw (1–1, at Deportivo de La Coruña); in early 1970, whilst playing with the Spain under-23 team in Italy, he suffered a serious injury that sidelined him for nearly two years. Gaztelu scored a career-best seven goals (from 29 games) in 1973–74, helping the ''Txuriurdin'' to the fourth position. On 5 December 1976, he was decorated by Real Sociedad to celebrate his tenth season and, shortly after, scored twice – once through a penalty kick – to help to a 5–0 home win over

Athletic Bilbao Athletic Club ( eu, Bilboko Athletic Kluba; es, Athletic Club de Bilbao), commonly known as Athletic Bilbao or just Athletic, is a professional Association football, football club based in the city of Bilbao in the Basque Country (autonomous com ...

in the Basque derby. Gaztelu contributed one match in 1980–81, as Real won their first ever national championship. In the process, he became the first player to achieve that feat as well as promotion from

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...

, retiring at the end of the campaign at 35.

International career

Gaztelu won two caps for Spain, in as many years. His first came on 15 October 1969, as he started in a 6–0 rout of Finland in La Línea de la Concepción for the

1970 FIFA World Cup The 1970 FIFA World Cup was the ninth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's senior national teams. Held from 31 May t ...

qualifiers.

Personal life and death

Gaztelu's son

Agustín Agustín is a Spanish given name and sometimes a surname. It is related to Augustín. People with the name include: Given name * Agustín (footballer), Spanish footballer * Agustín Calleri (born 1976), Argentine tennis player * Agustín Cár ...

was also a footballer. A defender, he too played for Real Sociedad and Spain. The former died in his hometown on 30 December 2020, aged 74.Jose Agustin Aranzabal 'Gaztelu' zendu da, Realeko jokalari historikoetako bat (Death of José Agustín Aranzábal 'Gaztelu', one of Real's historic players)
Goiena, 30 December 2020 (in Basque)

Honours

* La Liga: 1980–81 *

: 1966–67

References

External links