Athletic Bilbao cantera
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| Full name | Athletic Club |
|---|---|
| Ground |
Instalaciones de Lezama, Biscay, Basque Country, Spain |
| Capacity | 1,500 |
| President | Josu Urrutia |
| Coach | Ibán Fuentes |
| League | División de Honor |
| 201516 | División de Honor, Gr. 2, 1st |
| Website | www |
The cantera (quarry) of Spanish professional football club Athletic Bilbao is the organisation's youth academy, developing players from childhood through to the integration of the best prospects into the adult teams.
The final category within the youth structure is the Juvenil A [(Basque: Gazteak A) under-18/19 team team which represents the club in national competition. The successful graduates then usually move to the club's affiliated team for younger players, CD Basconia, or less commonly to the reserve team, Bilbao Athletic, which are also considered part of the cantera due to being a stage in progression towards the senior team, albeit competing in the adult league system.
The academy is based at the club training complex, Lezama, which is often the name used informally to refer to the system itself.
The top football clubs in the Spanish leagues generally place great importance in developing their cantera to promote the players from within or sell to other clubs as a source of revenue. As a club who have a small pool of players to choose from due to their Basque-only policy, this focus on home-grown talent is even more vital to Athletic Bilbao. Most of their current first team players are youth academy graduates (15 of the squad in 2014). In 2016, Athletic's total of 17 homegrown players (as per UEFA guidelines, 3 years of training between 15 and 21 years old) still at their formative club was the highest across Europe's 'big five' leagues, and far more than all other top clubs apart from neighbours Real Sociedad. A sum of 25 including 8 former trainees at other eligible clubs ranked as the 5th highest, although only 3rd in Spain behind Real Madrid and Barcelona who retained just a few of the many high-level players they produced.
The core of boys from the local Biscay region are first introduced into the Lezama Alevín teams at around 10 years of age and advance by an age group every season through Infantil, Cadete and Juvenil levels. The players who are retained by Athletic after their Juvenil A spell (aged about 17) typically join farm team CD Basconia in Basauri, with the squad normally expanded further with signings from the regions’s youth clubs, most notably Danok Bat and Antiguoko who regularly challenge Athletic, Osasuna and Real Sociedad for the title in their División de Honor group.
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