Athletic Bilbao's Ambitions Rising with Those of the Basque Region It Represents

The Basque country has two huge fixtures scheduled for this week, yet it is perhaps the one that does not involve the region's most prominent team that many residents will be watching with greater anxiety.

On Wednesday, the Basque capital Bilbao's top-flight side, Athletic Club, will return to the Champions League after a 16-year absence, as 50,000 fans descend on the breathtaking new San Mames stadium to see their side host Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk in the curtain-raiser of Group H.

It is another clash just hours later, however, that hundreds of thousands more will have their eye on. One day after Los Leones ("The Lions") re-introduce themselves to Europe’s biggest club competition, Scotland will go to the polls to decide whether they will secede from the rest of the United Kingdom.

It is a referendum with implications for a number of countries and their constituent regions throughout Europe; if Scotland votes "yes"—the latest polls seem to have the "no" vote only marginally ahead—then others in a similar situation might expect to be given the right to make a similar choice, the Basque country among them.

Perhaps in a sign of how significant they perceive the vote to be, this week one of the provincial Basque governments hung a Scottish flag from its chambers in a show of support for the Scottish decision.

Regional autonomy has long been a thorny—and often horribly violent—issue in Spain, with Scotland’s current circumstances drawing the discussion into sharp focus once more. It was perhaps an interesting coincidence, then, that Saturday's La Liga fixtures saw Bilbao come up against Barcelona, the capital of another region looking to separate from Spain, Catalonia.

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The Thursday prior to the game between the two sides, a demonstration in Barcelona commemorating the diada—Catalan National Day, the September date in 1714 where the state finally submitted to Spain—re-raised questions about the potential independence of a region that has always had a fraught relationship with the centre of power in Madrid.

Then on Saturday, despite the game being played at the Nou Camp, Barcelona played in their away strip, designed with the same red-and-yellow striping as the Catalan flag.

Athletic, meanwhile, also wore their away strip—a green, white and red number that is similarly based on the colours of the Basque flag.

The presence of both teams, playing in those colours, made it a political moment as much as a sporting one (the Spanish football federation approved the kit choices before the game)—especially considering events in the United Kingdom.

"Catalonia and Scotland have again put the issue of the peoples' right to decide on the political stage, showing that this is an open question in Europe," Pello Urizar, leader of one party in Basque government coalition, told the Financial Times (registration required) this week.

"Our future depends on breaking ties [with Spain].”

In Athletic, the Basque region has a perfect symbol for its growing optimism and ambition for its future.

Unlike another Basque side, Real Sociedad, who relaxed their own selection rules in the 1980s, Bilbao have an unwritten club policy that it will only sign and select players with Basque heritage (a written policy could presumably be challenged in the courts), making it—to co-opt a Catalan phrase—"mes que un club" for its supporters.

That restricts its options significantly—smaller than Scotland, the region has a population of just over three million—even if, in recent years, the club has occasionally relaxed its definition of "Basque heritage" to widen its talent pool slightly (the Venezuelan-born defender Fernando Amorebieta represented the club, for example, while in 2009 Jonas Ramalho, the son of an Angolan father and Basque mother, became its first-ever black player).

By and large, that means the club lives and dies by the talent it produces from its youth academy. Of the current squad, almost every single one of the main contributors came through the ranks at the club's Lezama base, even if, in the likes of Aritz Aduriz and Benat Etxeberria, some had to leave for new pastures before their boyhood club realised what they could offer and bought them back.

The smaller talent pool available to the club means more money is poured into its youth resources—with so few players available to buy, what is the point of maintaining a sizeable transfer budget?—but equally it means replacing lost jewels is an almost impossible task.

In that light, it is not hard to see why Bilbao were so reluctant to let Ander Herrera leave for Manchester United in the summer; the 25-year-old ultimately paying compensation to his boyhood club in order to join the Premier League side.

It works both ways, however; the setup engenders a remarkable amount of loyalty and passion among its players for a club that has gone 37 years without a European trophy.

Herrera told The Guardian earlier this year:

"

I would never have left Athletic if it hadn’t been for a club like United. I left a different, unique club, with a special philosophy and incredible people.

It’s a club that few of us have had the privilege of playing for and, who knows, but for United I might have been there 10 years.

"

Herrera left plenty behind. Bilbao have always produced talent—along with Real Madrid and Barcelona, they are the only club never to be relegated from La Liga—but the young players alongside whom Herrera undertook his footballing education have long had high hopes attached to their collective careers.

Losing Herrera was a blow, but in the likes of Ander Iturraspe, Iker Muniain, Aymeric Laporte, Oscar de Marcos and Ibai Gomez, the club nevertheless has a core of young, talented players who are passionate about the club they represent and eager to bring success.

The arrival of Marcelo Bielsa, a tactical maverick if ever there was one, in 2011 perhaps saw the club's tactical approach begin to finally tap into the full potential of the talent it was producing.

For a while, it seemed to be the perfect marriage of a club with its own unique identity and a manager with a similarly idiosyncratic approach—witness the club's home-and-away beating of Manchester United in that season's Europa League, on their way to defeat in the final—but the volatile Chilean (the Basque-only policy does not extend to coaches, it seems) has never been a man to remain at one club for too long.

Ernesto Valverde returned for his second spell at the club as Bielsa's replacement in 2013, building on that solid foundation and guiding the club to fourth in La Liga last season.

That rewarded them with a play-off tie in the Champions League, as the club beat Napoli 3-1 at the newly opened San Mames to return to the Champions League for the first time since the 1998-1999 campaign.

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After the crowd propelled their side into the group stages (they were 1-0 down, and 2-1 on aggregate, before Aduriz's second half double), home form could be the bedrock on which Athletic bid to reach the knockout stages for the first time since the competition adopted a group format.

"We have to be strong at home, as we were last season in the League, that was one of the reasons we are here in the first place," perhaps the club’s brightest current talent, attacker Muniain, said this week.

"It is always good to start at home. It helps you get the first three points, which are vital."

With Porto and BATE Borisov completing Group H, on paper the Spanish side have a great opportunity to reach the last 16 and, who knows, go even further than that.

The quality of the current Bilbao side was on show at the Nou Camp, as Valverde's side resolutely refused to opt for the defensive tactics that Lionel Messi et al have come to expect from visiting sides.

But in their Basque colours, the visitors pushed forward incisively and often, although they were eventually undone by two late goals from substitute Neymar.

"I saw the game at Camp Nou," former Tottenham and Real Madrid manager Juande Ramos told Spanish newspaper AS this week. "They were very brave.

"Athletic's football will suit the Champions League. Valverde is doing a good job."

The decision on Scotland's future, if it goes the way the Basques are hoping, could eventually lead to thorny issues surrounding Athletic Club's participation in European football—or even Spanish football.

For now, however, the club could be poised to put the region firmly on football's map.