Copa Del Rey Final: Barcelona & Bilbao Build from Within

A number of clubs in Spain employ a cantera policy.  That’s to say they recruit, train and develop players from their home regions.  Spain’s history is a fractured one, and regional identity has a strong pull, particularly in the autonomous regions that celebrate and maintain their own linguistic and cultural traditions.  

Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao, Friday's Copa del Rey finalists, foster and enhance these regional ties in different ways, but for both the cantera program forges a strong bond to their respective communities and is the foundation to their success.

Long ago, the two giants of the Spanish league, Madrid and to a lesser extent Barcelona, drifted away from a strict application of the homegrown policy.  While local players still fuel the ranks of their academies and reserve squads, the national dominance and international stature each has achieved relies heavily on foreign influence.

Many of the greatest ever to wear a white or blaugrana shirt have, in fact, hailed from places far away from Real or Barcelona's natural talent pool.  Think of Puskas, Cruyff, Di Stefano, Laudrup, Zidane in the glorious past, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the brilliant present.

In Bilbao, the cantera policy is applied much more rigidly.  The club is composed entirely of those from, or those with direct ethnic ties to, the Basque country, a rugged region on Spain's northeast coast that extends into the southwest corner of France.  

In the era of big-money clubs, transfer dealings and shortcuts to success, Bilbao fields a roster built on the strength of their youth system.  In their most expensive offseason acquisition the club paid a reported €7.5 million to bring Bilbao-born Ander Herrera over from Real Zaragoza.

Contrast that with some of last summer’s signings in Spain: Atlético Madrid scooped up Radamel Falcao for €40 million from Porto (Falcao seemingly earned every euro cent of that, scoring 23 goals in La Liga and another twelve in Atleti’s Europa league-winning campaign); Barcelona paid a combined €60 million for the services of Cesc Fabregas (a Barça youth system product) and Alexis Sanchez.

Elsewhere in Europe, foreign ownership groups continue to spend extravagant sums to achieve varying degrees of on-the-field success.  Middle Eastern groups have picked up where Russian tycoons and American investment groups left off a few years ago.

Manchester City won a title, their first in 44 years, in part due to high-profile summer signings funded by the Emirati Sheikh Mansour.  Paris St. Germain fell just short of a French title but promises to be an active buyer this summer transfer season under the guise of the Qatar Investment Authority, the gulf nation’s sovereign wealth fund.  Malagá, the Spanish club on the Costa del Sol recently purchased by a Qatari sheikh, outspent Real Madrid last summer and cracked into the final Champions League spot in La Liga.

That foreign owners buy and manage foreign teams made up almost entirely of foreigners in Europe’s most lucrative football leagues is a by-product of the globalized nature and economic success of the game.  Man City’s final day starting 11 consisted of just as many Argentines as Englishmen (three).  And the club captain, Vincent Kompany, who raised the trophy in City’s Etihad Stadium was Belgian.

Major European football, particularly the EPL, is big business.  Foreign owners, modern stadia, short-lived managerial stints, sponsors and multinational squads have come to reflect that more than anything else.

For Bilbao, for Basques, the club is the reflection of an identity that predates the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.  The Basque language and customs are intimately tied to the names of those who wear and who've worn the red-and-white striped jerseys.    

Barcelona's motto, Mes que un club, is stamped on the empty seats at Europe's largest football stadium.  A message that can seemingly be read from space when the stadium is empty, but always felt, not only by the 90,000-plus blaugrana faithful who fill those seats, but by the entire Catalan nation.

Athletic's play, the style born from the club's English-influenced founding, also serves as a mark of demarcation from the rest of the country.

The rest of Spain, no doubt influenced by Barcelona's successful adoption of total football, has developed more passing-centric tactics, emphasizing possession and ball control.  Johann Cruyff, first as a player, then as the driving force behind the establishment of Barça's famed La Masia academy in 1979 and finally as manager in the late '80s and early '90s has left an indelible mark on Barcelona, and Spain's brand of football.

Athletic has long favored towards that English, direct-route style of attacking goal.  Bilbao's cantera was especially proficient in finding and developing stand-up strikers whose physical presence in the box was central to Athletic's strategy.  It's a tradition that began with Rafael Moreno Aranzadi a.k.a. "El Pichichi," a man so synonymous with goal-scoring that the year-end award for the most goals in La Liga bears his nickname.

Fernando Llorente was the newest incarnation of this type of player, moving through Bilbao’s youth ranks from the age of 11.  And while this style proved ideally suited to the genetic make up and temperament of local talent, it's inconsistent to the prevailing currents of Spanish—and perhaps all modern—football.

Many challenge cantera practices as anachronistic or even discriminatory.  However you must consider the uninterrupted presence of Athletic and Barcelona (as well as Real Madrid) in the top flight since its inception in 1929 as one measurement of success.

Another would be the league titles: eight for Athletic Club, 21 for the Catalan giants.  Or Bilbao's 23 Copa del Rey trophies (that's second only to Barcelona's 25). 

From these hotbeds have sprung a collection of players who, after formative years at the San Mamés or Nou Camp, have prospered with Spain's national team or abroad.

Further evidence of the unique relationship between these clubs and their regions: Think of Aitor Karanka, Andoni Zubizarreta, and more recently Fernando Llorente and Javi Martinez for Athletic; Barça's historical roster is richly composed of Antoni Ramallets, Carles Rexach and Pep Guardiola.  

The current crop of Catalan players—Xavi, Puyol, Fabregas, Piqué—were the foundation (with the exception of Fabregas, who rejoined the club just this year) to arguably the best club side to ever take the field.  Their impact with the national side is also felt.  Spain's 2008 European Cup-winning side featured four Barça players in the starting 11; the 2010 World Cup winners, six. 

So enjoy this Copa del Rey final, not only for the great quality of players lining up for Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona but also because it features two clubs who are proving that there is merit to their distinctive methods.