the Athletic president, was one. A former midfielder, he spent 26 years at the club, playing 348 times. He even rejected an offer from Real Madrid in order to remain with Athletic. He has said that Athletic’s policy is about pride in its values, particularly in a world that he calls ‘dehumanised’ and lacking in values. His career was the inspiration for Athletic to instigate its One-Club Man award, recognising loyalty in other professionals. The first three recipients were Matt Le Tissier (thus further developing the Southampton connection), Paolo Maldini and Sepp Maier. The club thought that affiliating one-club icons as Athletic ambassadors was also a smart way to teach youngsters the value of sometimes resisting the temptation, whether it’s a bigger salary or a bigger club, to move on.
The Spanish phrase I hear repeated to me in Bilbao is: ‘What do you want to be in life, the lion’s tail or the mouse’s face?’ In English, the equivalent would be the small fish in a big pond or the big fish in a small pond. The business that keeps the ‘mouse’s face’ is the business that retains its talent. The lesson? The grass is not necessarily always greener on the other side.
In each summer after Athletic reached the 2012 Europa League final (which it lost 3–0 to Atlético Madrid), it lost part of the team’s spine. Javi Martinez was first to go, moving to Bayern Munich for €40 million. His spell in Germany was decimated by injuries.
Next to go was Fernando Llorente, the forward, who moved to Juventus on a free transfer. He scored 16 goals in his first season in Serie A, helping his team win the Scudetto. His next two seasons (seven goals, zero goals) were less effective, and after three years in Turin he moved to Sevilla (four goals). Ander Herrera moved to Manchester United for €36 million, and survived two seasons of upheaval at Old Trafford before being able to show his best form, and winning United’s Player of the Season for 2016–17. Llorente’s name is still mentioned often in Bilbao. That season saw him embroiled in a relegation fight with Swansea, which was ultimately successful, but there’s a strong sense he might regret having ever left Lezama.
Often players only know what they are losing once it’s gone. Santi Urquiaga understands this better than most. He was part of the original intake of players when Lezama first opened its doors in 1971. A right-back, he progressed through the Bilbao Athletic ranks and made his first-team debut at 19. He played in the Athletic team that won back-to-back league titles in 1983 and 1984 (that was the last title the team won until the 2015 Super Cup). We meet at Lezama, where he is Facilities Manager. He points to one pitch and says that back in his day it was the only training pitch there. Where a women’s team is now training was one of two sand pitches. A tennis court used to be where the main gym now is.
‘It is difficult to explain what it was like to win La Liga with Athletic,’ Urquiaga says with a smile. ‘We always say that you have to have lived it to be able to understand. The whole city came out onto the streets for the celebration party. Schools and factories and offices were all closed for the day. These were my friends, my neighbours, the people I grew up with. I lived among them in Sestao. I still do. I’m still the guy that won the title.’
Urquiaga was a Spanish international when he left Athletic and moved to Espanyol. He was successful there too, reaching a UEFA Cup final in 1986. But he says, with a tinge of sadness in his voice: ‘Even that was not the same.’ So, what is it about this culture? ‘When there are difficulties at Athletic, it is not like at other clubs,’ he says. ‘Nobody is looking to leave; you are playing with the friends you grew up with. That means you become more united when the going gets tough; you fight together, until the end.’
Urquiaga points to the far corner of the first team’s training pitch. That’s where work will start soon on a new main building. ‘As we don’t buy players like other clubs, the money made by the club is invested back into the youth system and the facilities,’ he says. ‘We want this place to be like the best university here, to have the best facilities and give the kids the best chance to make it.’
His choice of the word university is no coincidence. In February 2016, Athletic formalised a relationship with the Bilbao-based University of Deusto. Young players at Lezama can gain a university degree in physical education and sport science. The four-year course contains modules on anatomy, physiology, teaching PE, and theory and practice in sports including handball, volleyball and Basque pelota.
Iker Saez teaches the course. He is a regular at San Mames and is working on a PhD that shows education between the ages of 14 and 18 improves sporting performance. ‘I believe the best players are often the best students,’ he says. ‘If I’m smart with my brain, I can analyse the game better. But don’t forget the Athletic way is also to develop good people. They want to develop role models for society, and education is at the forefront of that.’
Amorrortu takes a similar view. ‘In the end, the kids need to perform in all that they do,’ he says. ‘Their grades are an expression of their personality. That is something to do with them as a person – it’s good to be able to play football well, but you must also be a person who knows how to value effort, who overcomes difficulties, and that is a question of personality. Education forms part of a rounded person, someone who knows about the world around them: politics, business, how things happen. Does it make them a better professional? I’m convinced it does. In the end, someone who knows how to express themselves, who knows how to reason, who has the ability to have relationships with people, that is very important. That is fundamental. That opens you up for everything, and it helps you deal with the pressure.’
The players know that if they fall behind in their grades, there is a chance they may not get picked. What happens in school tells Athletic what is in the players’ heads; and the club believes what is in their heads between 14 and 18 can be a marker for future performance. There are four players in the first team with BA or BSc-level degrees, and another six with the high school Baccalaureate qualification. Compare this with England, where Duncan Watmore is the only top-flight player to earn a degree since John Wetherall in 1992. More often, the students come from Bilbao Athletic and Baskonia. Amorrortu says around 60 per cent of the players complete their university courses.
There is one line in Amorrortu’s document that is in capital letters. It reads: ‘EL NOS ANTES QUE EL YO’ (The ‘us’ before ‘me’). Developing this sense of community, through education and belonging, can be powerful. The Athletic model reminds me of Next Jump, an American business that runs employee rewards programmes, allowing discounts from over 30,000 merchants. There are around 200 Next Jump employees based in four cities, and they benefit from a unique company structure. This includes subsidised holidays, free food (a healthy lunch if you attend a lunchtime fitness class), mentors for everyone and Code for a Cause, which offers out employees’ IT skills to charities that need it.
The other reason staff turnover at Next Jump is almost zero, and 90 per cent of employees say they love working there, is not the company dance-off at the annual party, but the No Firing policy. Once Next Jump hires you, the contract is for life. ‘Hiring managers started treating hiring like adoption: once we take someone into our family, they’re here for life, [and] when things don’t work, they’re responsible for training them, helping them,’ explained CEO Charlie Kim. He noticed that training became much more comprehensive, focusing more on character and integrity. The biggest impact he saw was in the effectiveness of performance evaluations. Instead of scepticism from employees concerned about a future firing, there was an honesty and openness in these discussions. Employees spoke frankly about their problems and concerns and, as a result, never took those stresses home with them. With a focus on developing the individuals, employee turnover is down and overall happiness up.
In the ongoing quest for improvement, Athletic can rely on one of their biggest fans: Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, famous in Spain for his outstanding work on the game theory of penalty-kicks. Palacios-Huerta is also on the board at Athletic, where his official title is Head of Talent Identification.
‘The
