He played 336 La Liga games and scored 73 goals, representing Sporting Gijón, Athletic Bilbao and Hércules.

[2] In August 1976, after Sporting's relegation, Churruca transferred back to his home region to join Athletic Bilbao, having played an important part in their elimination from the previous season's Copa del Generalísimo.

[11] In December 1982, he publicly called manager Jesús Moreno Manzaneque an autocrat for coming to a restaurant where he was dining with his wife to inform him that he had broken curfew by 15 minutes, subsequently being dropped from the team and made to train alone.

[13] He totalled 16 appearances over the next six years, with no goals or major tournaments, though he played both legs of the 3–1 aggregate loss to West Germany in the UEFA Euro 1976 quarter-finals, which formed part of the qualification.

The game finished as a goalless draw against the Soviet Union in Bilbao, with the opponents fielding the likes of Oleg Blokhin.