Athletic Club de BilbaoAthletic Club from Bilbao owe their nickname, Los Leones, to Saint Mamés, the Christian martyr who by tradition was thrown to the lions and left unharmed. The legend gave the name to the club's stadium, San Mamés, and the lions followed. Founded in 1898, the club plays in red and white stripes, in use since 1910. It still carries an English name, a trace of the way football reached Bilbao through British workers and Basque students returning from Britain.
The feature that sets Athletic apart from almost every other top-level club is the cantera policy. The club fields only players born in the Basque Country, or trained in Basque clubs. The territory is understood to include Biscay, Gipuzkoa, Álava, Navarre and the French Basque provinces. The principle has survived changes in the transfer market and has turned a regional academy into the club's main source of squad players. Athletic is also, with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, one of only three clubs that have never been relegated from Spain's top division.
The club has won eight Spanish league titles, between 1930 and 1984, and 24 Copa del Rey trophies, the second-highest total in the competition's history after Barcelona. The first two league titles, in 1930 and 1931, came under the English coach Fred Pentland. The most recent league title, in 1984, came in a season that also brought the Copa del Rey. The club did not win a major domestic trophy again for 40 years.
The statistical symbol of Athletic's attacking tradition is Telmo Zarra, who played for the club from 1940 to 1955. He won the Pichichi Trophy as La Liga's top scorer six times and scored 251 league goals. That record stood until 2014, when Lionel Messi surpassed it. The trophy itself is named after another Athletic forward, Rafael Moreno "Pichichi", who scored the first goal at San Mamés in 1913 and died in 1922, aged 29. A bust of him stands at the stadium, and visiting teams traditionally lay flowers at its foot.
Athletic's European record includes several memorable ties. In the 1956–57 European Cup, the club beat Manchester United 5–3 at San Mamés, but lost the return leg 3–0 and went out 6–5 on aggregate. The club's best European results are two finals in the UEFA Cup, later renamed the Europa League. In 1977 Athletic lost to Juventus, which went through on away goals after the tie finished level on aggregate. In 2012 Athletic beat Manchester United on the way to the final in Bucharest, where Atlético Madrid won 3–0.
The long wait for a trophy ended in 2024. On 6 April, Athletic beat Mallorca on penalties in the Copa del Rey final in Seville, after a 1–1 draw. It was the club's 24th Copa and showed that the cantera model could still win a major title in modern football.
San Mamés, known as "La Catedral" (the Cathedral), is the club's home. The first stadium opened in 1913. The current arena, opened in 2013, was built next to the old ground, which was then demolished. Athletic have never traded the principle of local players for transfer-market spending, and for the club and its supporters that principle is as important as any trophy.
