Athletic Southampton - "The Quarry"?

Being an avid follower of Athletic Bilbao, I was pleased to see that they will be represented by four players in Spain's friendly against Venezuela, one of which being Iker Muniain - touted as "Spain's Lionel Messi". They are also through to the next round of the Europa League, where they will face Manchester United.

They are one of only three clubs who have played in every single season of "La Liga", and second behind Real Madrid in producing players for the Spain's national team. Indeed, Spain's long-time most capped player, goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta, first made his name playing six seasons at Athletic, before moving on to Barcelona. They have won La Liga 8 times, the Copa del Rey 23 times (only behind Barca) and sit 4th in the all-time La Liga league table (behind the big two and Valencia).

For those who don't know, Athletic are famous for being one of the only clubs in the world who only employ Basque players, but it should be noted that this is through tradition rather than deliberate exclusion, also the reason why they have only just fielded their first black player (Jonas Romalho, half Angolan. The Basque region is not a big region in terms of immigration). The "Cantera" policy (meaning quarry) was widely used 50 years or so ago, but as times changed, clubs began moving in for foreign players. Through it all, Athletic have maintained this Cantera policy by making use of their excellent youth setup to produce home-grown talent, many of whom tend to stay at the club for a long time, as well as buying in Basque talent from clubs such as Osasuna and Real Sociedad. As such, players such as Telmo Zarra, Jose Angel Iribar and more recently Joseba Etxeberria have led long careers for Los Leones as well as regularly representing the Spanish national team at the highest level.

Today, Bilbao possess some extremely potent weapons in their team in the form of defender Andoni Iraola, midfielder Javi Martinez and forwards Iker Muniain and the highly sought after Fernando Llorente. In addition, younger players like the previously mentioned Jonas Ramalho, Jon Aurtenetxe, Inigo Ruiz de Galarreta and Enric Saborit are bubbling under on the fringes of the first team.

So why have I decided to talk about this on the Saints board?

It can be argued that Saints and Athletic are very similar clubs in that they have a proven track record in honing youth talent. They are also both emerging from dark spells in their existence, as in 2007 they very nearly lost their top flight status after a very poor season. And it can be argued that Southampton is in Athletic's DNA, with one of the theories behind their creation being that it was establish by British dockyard workers from cities such as Sunderland and Southampton. An even bigger myth is that Bilbao's kit was based on Southampton's (and Sunderland's), with the workers taking Southampton kits over to Bilbao. The links between the clubs were of course acknowledged in pre-season when Athletic played, and won, the Markus Leibherr Memorial trophy.

During the aforementioned dark spell, Athletic fans were polled by El Mundo magazine on what they would take - relegation or dropping the cantera in favour of bringing in more foreign talent. The results were a big surprise to many...

76% of fans would rather keep the cantera and be relegated. The fans care about the club, they feel they are the club. And that is indeed one of the reasons why they keep to the cantera. The club are extremely proud of this policy too, with the club's motto saying "Con cantera y afición, no hace falta importación", which means "with home-grown players and fans, there is no need to import". In a day where Arsenal fielded entirely foreign players, it is so refreshing to see a club not only fielding entirely local players, but doing well with them too.

As for Saints, we have a great group of young players waiting in the wings, with the likes of Luke Shaw, James Ward-Prowse, Jack Stephens and Callum Chambers making waves at youth level in England. And so, with the England national team struggling with finding high quality players to represent the country, I put these questions to you, the fans of Southampton FC....

What are your opinions of this policy of only fielding local players? Is it something you would support if we ever decided to take the policy up, and if so to what extent should it go (just English/British, or entirely Southampton/South East based)? And on a more general note, will we ever see another club adopt this policy?

 

We couldn't survive on a Cantera policy. I think there are only three regions capable of producing the required depth of talent and those are London, Manchester and the Basque region. I would only support the policy for us if all the other clubs did it as well.

 

Great article Conman, very thought-provoking. My initial response is, "not a chance, that would never work in this country." Having said that, one of the aims of the Cortese vision is to have 50% of the team coming from the Academy at some point in the future, which is, I suppose, part of the way to the Athletic model.

At the end of the day, though, it's the ambition of the club which will determine whether a policy like this could be adopted. Athletic have never won major European honours and possibly never will unless they widen their intake parameters. By the same token, it's true that Saints have produced a few world-class players in our time, but I can't imagine we could ever produce a whole Champions League-winning team from our own academy, and I don't think any other club in the country could either.

 

I think it's a great policy,I'd like us to adopt it,but our current policy is good enough.
Bilbao are doing really well this season after getting off to a bad start,they now find themselves with a chance of finishing in 4th place.
Fernando Llorente is the spanish Lambert.

 

I think Catalonia might have something to say about that!

 

And Birmingham.

 

I don't really get it to be honest, I suppose it's a Basque nationalist thing, so I don't really see how it would apply over here. I suppose I can imagine a Welsh team that refused to play English players as a similar thing but it seems quite hard to imagine anyone would go that far.

Real Sociedad have a cantera policy too, but they have allowed themselves to field foreign players (ie not Spanish).

 

I also follow Athletic Bilbao and Spanish football in general. The basque tradition is one of the best things I've heard in football.

Let's hope they can win the copa del ray v barca and knock united out of the euros

 

Real Sociedad don't run a cantera policy, at least not in the same way that Athletic do. They do have a famed youth academy though (Xabi Alonso anyone?). Admittedly, they used to and it wasn't until they siged John Aldridge that they ran in a similar way to Athletic in fielding only Basque players.

I should just add that in recent years, Athletic have relaxed the rule on what "Basque" constitutes. They now allow players who have effectively come through a youth system with a Basque, or with Basque ancestry to play.

 

I would say the other link between the two clubs is that dock workers and shipmen from here, Portsmouth and Sunderland founded the club and Bilbao's red and white shirts came from Southampton football club!

 

.

 

I was under the impression they don't have any non-Basque Spanish players?

 

Is it still the case that they don't allow the Spanish national anthem to be played or sung inside the San Mames?

 

Well it wouldn't be sung as it has no words . Isn't there a Basque national anthem or something?

 

The majority are Basques, but there are a couple who are from outside the region.

 

I'd forgotten that! There is a Basque national anthem,but I heard ages ago that even if the Spanish national team were playing in the stadium, they wouldn't allow the Spanish anthem to be played. Just asking if that's still the case.

 

Yeah I think the commentator actually said something about that during the Athletic v Lokomotiv game yesterday.

 

They do sing it though, it's bloody hilarious.