Copa del Rey final: Athletic Bilbao face Barcelona in battle of Spain's acclaimed academies


Ian Hawkey
  • English
  • Arabic

At the beginning of this year, Athletic Bilbao celebrated the 50th anniversary of their training headquarters, now also the home of their academy.

The Lezama site, some 10 kilometres outside Bilbao, is tranquil, well-appointed and much like its equivalents in other top division clubs. What it stands for, though, is unique.

When it was opened, in 1971, most leading clubs would expect their young players to be enrolling in the youth system from homes not far away. Elite football then was firmly rooted in the locale.

In the 21st century, it is anything but – except at Athletic Bilbao, where a commitment to only field players born, or raised, or with family connections in the Basque region is maintained even as the sport grows ever more global.

That puts a premium on Lezama academy graduates, the local boys largely responsible for keeping Athletic in the top division in Spain and ensuring they compete for silverware.

“Kids from a very young age understand here that the main goal is to reach the first-team squad and that this is their route to the top division,” says Rafa Alkorta, the club’s sporting director and a former Athletic and Spain player. “Loyalty is important but difficult to maintain."

Athletic may have strictly defined criteria about who can wear their jersey; they cannot as rigidly control who stays or leaves. Lezama’s reputation as a talent-factory means “we have scouts coming to look from elsewhere, from abroad, says Alkorta. "We put in a lot of hard work to develop talent. It’s a lot of man hours that produces so many good players.”

So far, Lezama has had a rewarding 50th year. In January, Athletic won the Spanish Super Cup – beating Real Madrid in the last four and then Barcelona in the final – to deliver a first trophy for six years.

Two weeks ago, they played the long-delayed 2020 Copa del Rey final, a derby against rivals Real Sociedad, another club with a strong tradition of home-grown talent. Athletic lost 1-0 but always knew compensation might come quickly.

The 2021 Copa del Rey final takes place on Saturday, two weeks after last season’s version – which was postponed because of the pandemic – and Barcelona will be the opposition.

World's most valuable football clubs

Home-grown talent will be well represented. No two clubs fly the flag for local excellence more vigorously than Athletic and Barca. Bilbao are proud to represent the Basque Country every time they release a team sheet.

No single institution in the region of Catalonia is as well known across the world as Barcelona FC. Barca also like to think the team is at its strongest when the senior XI is packed with players who have come through their own system.

Their academy, La Masia, may still be the most celebrated hothouse of football talent anywhere. It is certainly among the most studied and copied.

Just under a decade ago, Barcelona actually fielded an entire senior XI made up only of former students of their own academy during a 4-0 win over Levante.

Not all were locally-born, the club’s greatest academy product being an Argentinian, Lionel Messi, who arrived at La Masia aged 13, and Andres Iniesta being a native of La Mancha, 500 kilometres to the south of Barcelona. But all those on the pitch owed their sporting apprenticeships to La Masia.

So did the spine of the Barca teams who won the 2009 and 2011 Champions League titles, and the Spain side who triumphed at the 2010 World Cup.

Spanish football may not reign quite as supreme now as it did then, but it remains a leader in cultivating the bridge between club youth systems and senior sides.

Of the top 10 clubs, from the five strongest European leagues, which have the most former academy players in their senior squads, five are Spanish, including, inevitably, Athletic and Barcelona. Marseille make the list, as do Southampton.

On Saturday in Seville, Athletic’s line-up for the Cup final should include at least five Lezama boy-to-man graduates, including captain Iker Munain, striker Inaki Williams and goalkeeper Unai Simon.

Barcelona will pick in their side 30-somethings from older La Masia cohorts, such as Messi, Gerard Pique, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, and one or two who passed through the academy more recently, and in many cases arrived there from far afield, like Pedri, a Canary islander, and Ilaix Moriba, born in Guinea.

To Barca's regret, La Masia's star graduate who is still in his teens, Guinea-Bissau-born Ansu Fati, will miss out with injury. A concern of fans, meanwhile, is that the club's most brilliant student of all time, Messi, may be playing his last final as a Barcelona footballer, his future after this summer still to be clarified.

How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
  1. Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
  2. Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
  3. Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
  4. Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
  5. Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
  6. The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
  7. Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269

*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year

Brief scores:

Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first

Pakhtoons 137-6 (10 ov)

Fletcher 68 not out; Cutting 2-14

Sindhis 129-8 (10 ov)

Perera 47; Sohail 2-18

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SERIE A FIXTURES

Saturday Benevento v Atalanta (2pm), Genoa v Bologna (5pm), AC Milan v Torino (7.45pm)

Sunday Roma v Inter Milan (3.30pm), Udinese v Napoli, Hellas Verona v Crotone, Parma v Lazio (2pm), Fiorentina v Cagliari (9pm), Juventus v Sassuolo (11.45pm)

Monday Spezia v Sampdoria (11.45pm)

MATCH INFO

Barcelona 2
Suarez (10'), Messi (52')

Real Madrid 2
Ronaldo (14'), Bale (72')

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE SQUAD

 

Goalkeepers: Ali Khaseif, Fahad Al Dhanhani, Mohammed Al Shamsi, Adel Al Hosani

Defenders: Bandar Al Ahbabi, Shaheen Abdulrahman, Walid Abbas, Mahmoud Khamis, Mohammed Barghash, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Hassan Al Mahrami, Yousef Jaber, Mohammed Al Attas

Midfielders: Ali Salmeen, Abdullah Ramadan, Abdullah Al Naqbi, Majed Hassan, Abdullah Hamad, Khalfan Mubarak, Khalil Al Hammadi, Tahnoun Al Zaabi, Harib Abdallah, Mohammed Jumah

Forwards: Fabio De Lima, Caio Canedo, Ali Saleh, Ali Mabkhout, Sebastian Tagliabue

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

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Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.

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2.0

Director: S Shankar

Producer: Lyca Productions; presented by Dharma Films

Cast: Rajnikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Long read

Mageed Yahia, director of WFP in UAE: Coronavirus knows no borders, and neither should the response

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Ticket prices
  • Golden circle - Dh995
  • Floor Standing - Dh495
  • Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
  • Lower Bowl premium - Dh795
  • Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
  • Lower Bowl Standard- Dh595
  • Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
  • Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Key facilities
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  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
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  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

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The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

The years Ramadan fell in May

1987

1954

1921

1888

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Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh149,900

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