Athletic Bilbao
Athletic Club, commonly known as Athletic Bilbao, or simply Athletic, is a professional football club based in the city of Bilbao, Spain. They are known as Lehoiak because their stadium was built near a church called San Mamés, which was named after Saint Mammes, an early Christian thrown to the lions by the Romans. Mammes pacified the lions and was later made a saint. The team plays its home matches at the San Mamés Stadium. Its home colours are red and white striped shirts with black shorts.
Athletic are the fourth most successful club in La Liga with eight titles to their name. In the table of Copa del Rey titles, Athletic is second only to Barcelona, having won it 24 times. It is also the most successful Basque football club in both league and cup titles won. The club also has one of the most successful women's teams in Spain, which has won five championships in the Primera División Femenina.
The club is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division since its inception in 1929, the others being Real Madrid and Barcelona. These three clubs, along with Osasuna, are the only four professional clubs in Spain that are not sports corporations; instead they are owned and operated by club members. Athletic's main rivals are Real Sociedad, against whom it contests the Basque derby, and Real Madrid, due to sporting and political identity; a minor rivalry also exists with Barcelona due to historical significance. At various points in the club's history, further Basque league derbies have been contested against Alavés, Eibar and Osasuna.
The club is known for its cantera policy of bringing young Basque players through the ranks, as well as recruiting players from other Basque clubs. Athletic's official policy is to sign players native to or trained in football in the greater Basque Country, which includes Biscay, Gipuzkoa, Álava and Navarre, as well as Labourd, Soule and Lower Navarre. Since 1911, Athletic has played exclusively with players meeting its own criteria to be deemed Basque. It has gained Athletic both admirers and critics. The club has been praised for promoting home grown players and club loyalty. The rule does not apply to coaching staff, with several examples of non-Basques both from Spain and abroad having coached the first team.
Despite the implications of the name 'Athletic Club' in English, and unlike some of the other major Spanish teams, which have several departments, it is not a multi-sport club, participating only in football, although sections for cycling and other sports existed prior to the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
History
Bilbao FC, Athletic Club, and Club Bizcaya
Football was introduced to Bilbao by two distinct groups with British connections: British workers and Basque students returning from schools in Britain. In the late 19th century, Bilbao was a leading industrial town, thus becoming the home to a large British colony, mainly made up of migrant workers, including shipyard workers and miners from various areas of England, such as Southampton, Portsmouth, and Sunderland. Along with coal, they brought with them the game of football. Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes, such as Juan Astorquia, went to Britain to complete their studies, and while there they developed a deep interest in football. When they returned, they began to organize games with British workers at the Hippodrome of Lamiako, which at the time was the home of organized football in Biscay.In 1898, Juan Astorquia and six other Basque students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois began to practice football in Lamiako. Three years later, in 1901, at a meeting held at the Café García, this group of football pioneers, now larger, began conversations to become a legalized official football club, which they called Athletic Club, using the English spelling. Luis Márquez became the club's first president, while Astorquia and Alfred Mills were named the team's captain and vice-captain, but in 1902, Astorquia replaced Márquez as president, ruling from 1902 until 1903. Under his presidency, Athletic and their city rivals Bilbao Football Club reached an agreement to combine the best players of both sides to form a team known as Club Bizcaya, which was created to compete in the 1902 Copa de la Coronación held in Madrid; Bizcaya returned to Bilbao with the trophy after beating Joan Gamper's FC Barcelona 2–1 in the final. On 24 March 1903, Bilbao FC and its associates were officially and definitively absorbed by Athletic Club. The club itself declares 1898 as its foundation date.
Pichichi and Copa del Rey
The club featured prominently in early Copas del Rey. Following their triumph at the Copa de la Coronación by Club Bizcaya, Athletic won their first Copa del Rey in 1903. After watching the final in the Spanish capital that year, Basque students also formed an affiliated team, Athletic Club Madrid, which later evolved into Atlético Madrid. In 1904, holders Athletic were declared winners of the trophy after their opponents failed to turn up. In 1907, they revived the name Club Vizcaya after entering a combined team with La Union and were beaten in the Copa final. After a brief lull, they won again in 1910, with Luis Astorquia as the new captain and goalkeeper.In 1911, former team captain Alejandro de la Sota, was elected as the 7th president of the club, and he was the driving force behind the construction of the San Mamés Stadium, which opened in 1913 and soon became one of the symbols of Athletic's dominance in the 1910s, winning the Copa del Rey three times in a row between 1914 and 1916, with Billy Barnes as coach. Between 1917 and 1919, the club went through a period of institutional crisis and during that time did not participate in the Copa del Rey, having failed to win the regional tournament that acted as the qualifier. In 1920, with the return of Billy Barnes, Athletic once again participated in the national championship and in 1921 won the Copa del Rey again.
The star of this team was Pichichi, a prolific goalscorer who scored the first goal at the San Mamés on 21 August 1913 and a hat-trick in the 1915 final. The last championship won by Pichichi was the 1921 Copa del Rey, before his death aged just 29 in 1922. Today, the La Liga top-scorer is declared the Pichichi in his honour.
Fred Pentland and the ''first historic attack''
Along with fellow Basque clubs such as Real Unión, Arenas Club de Getxo and Real Sociedad, Athletic was a founding member of La Liga in 1928 and by 1930 they were joined by CD Alavés; five of the ten clubs in the Primera División were from the Basque Country. The saying "Con cantera y afición, no hace falta importación", made sense during these early days.In 1922, a new English coach, Fred Pentland, arrived; in 1923, he led the club to victory in the Copa del Rey. He revolutionised the way Athletic played, favouring the short-passing game. In 1927, Pentland left Athletic but returned in 1929 and led the club to La Liga/Copa del Rey doubles in 1930 and 1931. The club won the Copa del Rey four times in a row between 1930 and 1933 and they were also La Liga runners-up in 1932 and 1933. In 1931, Athletic defeated Barcelona 12–1, the latter's worst defeat and the biggest win in LaLiga history.
Athletic's success under English coaches continued with William Garbutt. His first season in Spain was a massive success as he managed to win the Liga that year. He had inherited a talented squad that included one of the best strikers in the club's history, known as Primera delantera histórica, formed by Lafuente, José Iraragorri, Bata, Chirri II and Guillermo Gorostiza. Goalkeeper Gregorio Blasco also stood out, who was the most unbeaten goalie in LaLiga on three occasions.
Garbutt promoted the young Ángel Zubieta to the first team, a player who at 17 years of age became the youngest ever to play for the Spanish national team at the time. In the final game of the season, the title was decided when Athletic defeated Oviedo 2–0 at home on 19 April 1936, winning the title two points ahead of Real Madrid. In July 1936, football halted due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The league did not restart until the 1939–40 season. Athletic Club did not win the title again until 1943 and by that time Garbutt had been exiled.
Telmo Zarra and the ''second historic attack''
In 1941, the club was forced to change its name to Atlético Bilbao, following a decree issued by Franco, who also changed the name of the Copa del Rey to Copa del Generalísimo, in reference to his own figure.After the civil war, the club had to rebuild the team almost from scratch, as only seven players from the team before the conflict remained: some who had shown themselves in favour of Basque nationalism or the Spanish republic went into exile in Latin America, and others were rejected for fear of reprisals. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Athletic focused on the young promises of the Basque teams to rebuild the team. In this way, it managed to create a competitive team that quickly became champions.
During the 1940s and early 1950s, the club featured the legendary forward line formed by Rafa Iriondo, Francisco Gárate, Telmo Zarra, José Luis Panizo and Agustín Gaínza, which was nicknamed Segunda delantera histórica ; midfielder Nando González and goalkeeper Raimundo Lezama also stood out from this team. This squad, coached by Juan Urkizu, won a double in 1943 and retained Copa del Generalísimo in both 1944 and 1945. Years later, Venancio Pérez replaced Garate in the forward line and José Iraragorri took over the bench. They helped the club win another Copa del Generalísimo and a Copa Eva Duarte in 1950.
The big star of this team was Telmo Zarra, who became one of the club's great legends and the top scorer in its history with 335 goals. He won six Pichichi Trophies for being the top scorer in LaLiga, and his 38 goals in the 1950–51 season stood as a record for 60 years. He was also the top scorer in LaLiga history since 1950 with 251 goals until in 2014 he was surpassed by Lionel Messi and later by Cristiano Ronaldo. In 1997, the King of Spain Juan Carlos I awarded him the gold medal to Royal Order of Sports Merit.