In a world of multi-million pound transfers, eye-watering wages and superstar lifestyles off the pitch, here’s a European football club that is refreshingly different – steeped in tradition and nearly completely dependent on their academy, the ‘Lezama’, to provide a pipeline of talent to the first team. This is Athletic Club Bilbao.

Athletic, as they are commonly referred to in Spain, was founded over a century ago in 1898 and won the Copa del Rey title 23 times and numerous Spanish league titles before Real Madrid and Barcelona began their dominance. Coming from a country that has several thousand football clubs, Athletic stand out because they are known to only recruit players who come from the Greater Basque country that covers the north-east of Spain and some parts of France. Despite the limitations, some of the outstanding talents that have played for the club in recent times include Ander Herrera, now at Manchester United, Javi Martinez, now at Bayern Munich, and Fernando Llorente, now at Sevilla.

Athletic Bilbao

The Athletic Team Ready for a Match
Source: Athletic Club Facebook Page

 

An academy-oriented club, Athletic invests all their money into their Academy training local talent instead of buying expensive players for the team. Amazingly, 80% of their first team are players from their own Academy – something the club prides itself on, and rightly so. Despite no longer being the topmost club in the country, Athletic have no inclination to change their policy. Local talent helped them win earlier, and they believe that it will help them win again.

“It’s a self imposed limitation that ultimately gives you much more strength because you know you’re competing from an inferior position against big clubs who can sign players from anywhere.” – Jorge Cerrato, Journalist, ETB

While youth all over Spain have to worry about competing against already established footballers to get on their local team, aspiring players from Basque only have to worry about competition from their peers – people they grew up with and train at the Academy with. More than just a sporting team, Athletic is like a family, and the loyalty and love that players have for their team is unlike any other.

The support that the team receives from the locals is phenomenal. Their stadium, the San Mames is almost full for every match. Fans of opposing teams dread going to San Mames, where they know that their cheers will only be drowned out by the voices of thousands of Athletic supporters. In Bilbao, everybody from the players to the fruit and vegetables vendors support the team, and their home stadium is called the Cathedral, because going to watch their team play is much like a pilgrimage for the fans.

Athletic Bilbao Fans

Athletic Fans Rooting for Their Team
Source: Athletic Club Facebook Page

From a grassroots point of view, there are few things more satisfying than to have local talent train with the neighbourhood club, imbibe the values of the people, and have the best of them turn out for the team while their families and friends cheer on from the sidelines in their home town week in, week out. As the young lady says, quite eloquently, in the video below, “I prefer to lose with Athletic than winning with Barcelona.” You can’t buy that kind of support.

That, for us, is the strength of a club that goes bottom-up, invests in grassroots, in an academy and then thinks about the viability of fielding a professional team of footballers in a respectable league. There’s a certain earthy, natural, organic DNA to institutions such as these and a sense of belonging and identity that is hard to come by these days.

As the Director of Athletic’s Club Museum, Asier Arrate, says:

“For me, victory is watching 11 Basque players every Sunday maintaining the philosophy that’s been there for over 100 years. That’s our title.”

Respect. And here’s a fantastic short film by Copa90 about Athletic Club Bilbao that any football fan will certainly appreciate. Enjoy it!