I was reading that Athletic Bilbao only use players from the Basque region. What would people prefer, Man City's team or 11 North East players who were a yo yo club between PL and Championship? I'm sure cheap tickets to watch a local team would be very popular for a lot of SAFC fans
Until they signed John Aldridge in 1989, Real Sociedad did the same. Both clubs managed to win La Liga (twice in the case of La Real and numerous times in the case of Athletic) following that policy. That suggests to me that we could be competitive just fielding NE players. Celtic, for example, won the European Cup with a team who had all been born within 10 miles of Celtic Park. Having said that, the Basque region is much bigger than the NE but with the right youth set up and good coaching, there's no reason why its not possible.
It has been criticised as discriminatory in some quarters but it extends to players who have been in the youth systems at other Basque clubs so, technically speaking, some players may not be of solely Basque origin. On the other hand, its been praised as an excellent way of promoting local talent.
No doubt it's class for local lads to get their chance but these days people will complain about anything. It's a bit like only signing players under 25 for example. I think Chelsea only offer their players over 30 a 1 year deal or something like that. Surprised some money grabbing lawyer hasn't picked up on it and tried to cash in. Saying that, Bilbao have always had a good side and done well so it can't be that bad a policy.
Yeah, I know what you're saying. You would think someone would come along and try and make some money out of challenging it. I don't know, maybe Spanish lawyers are more respectful of tradition.
Staggers me how competitive they remain, if they even relaxed it to 3 outside they could be CL, easily. There’s a much bigger pot than the North East though, huge areas of Spain, most of Latin America has basque areas (they’ve had several of those), there’s french basque. It’s not nearly as small a pot as the idealism would have you believe.
Ideally I would like to see a team full of players who came through the academy or supported Sunderland win a major trophy but the logistics of the game today means something like that could never happen
Yeah it does, famously Willy Sagnol who won the World Cup with France was a Bilbao player, they are quite notorious for stealing players from Sociedad as well Amazing the history though, I desperately tried to get to a game there before they rebuilt the San Mames but it was impossible. The stadium now is a jaw dropper, but supposedly the old one was about the best atmosphere in Western Europe.
https://en.eustat.eus/elementos/ele...ry-2019-with-2188017-people/not0016799_i.html According to this the basque population is 2.1 million compared to the North East which is 2.6 million
Does that include the French Basque country? There are about 250,000 of them. Plus, about 60,000 people identifying as Basque in the US and maybe 10,000 in Canada. There will be people outside of the Basque region but within Spain who are of Basque origin too, I'd imagine.
I'm not sure but the total amount is probably similar to the North East They have a partnership with a fourth division club to send promising youngsters to and have lots of scouts in the area. I wonder if it could work if we invested millions in something similar
I think its estimated at about 3 million in the Basque provinces, including France. So yeah, not dissimilar. I think it would be possible. Of course, it depends how you define north-eastern. Basque is an ethnic identity with distinct identifiable surnames, being from the NE isn't. Bilbao could probably draw on the 5 million people of Basque origin in Chile or about 10% of the Colombian population if needed. Would we count people with any connection to the NE?
That’s the population of Basque people living in Basque Country in Spain, not all of the Basques in the world. There’s numbers throughout South America, Chile and Venezuela national team have had Basque players.
Yeah, Aymeric Laporte was a bit of a controversial one apparently because his Basque connections were based on his great grandparents. Williams got in due to being born in Bilbao and having been through the youth system locally.
Haha love the original question would you take 11 local lads and yo-yo-ing between Prem and Championship ... given we’re in league 1 yep.
