Anybody who has had the dubious pleasure of discussing football with me knows I adore Athletic Bilbao.
For its storied history. For the romantic, doggedly community-mined spirit which informs its player recruitment policy, often expressed reductively as ‘Basque only’.
And for the astounding, uniquely engaging experience that was match day at San Mamés, the club’s now demolished home.
Though largely anonymous in Australia – where Spanish football seems to barely exist beyond the Madrid-Barca duopoly – Athletic has re-emerged in the consciousness of the football public in recent days via Manchester United’s grab for its star midfielder, Ander Herrera.
Frustrated in its pursuit of bigger names, and perhaps recalling his role in United’s 2012 Europa League exit, the football and marketing giant offered Athletic €30 million for Herrera as a last-minute consolation.
I have no hesitation in declaring this offer to be quite generous indeed, despite my great enjoyment of Herrera’s contribution to Athletic since his arrival.
But Los Leones president Josu Urrutia held firm, insisting on Herrera’s full €36 million contract buyout price. United were understandably reluctant to adhere, and the deal eventually collapsed amid farcical allegations of phony Red Devils representatives at Liga headquarters attempting to seal the deal.
Urrutia, you may have heard, has form in playing the hardball game.
In 2012, Bayern Munich was also forced to match the buyout clause (€40 million), and smash the Bundesliga transfer record, to acquire Javi Martinez. Again, this represented a blatantly exorbitant price.
That same off-season, he tried the same trick on Juventus over striker Fernando Llorente.
Of course, much of this obstinate transfer market logic is rooted in Athletic’s self-imposed restrictions. The club’s player policy means most potential replacements for departed stars are simply off limits.
In addition, much of the cream among eligible candidates – Xabi Alonso, Azpilicueta, Monreal, Illarramendi – are unlikely to be persuaded to depart their homes at giants such as Chelsea and Madrid.
But despite Athletic’s unique circumstances, I wonder whether all middleweight clubs might benefit from a similar inflexibility.
Sure, others have a world, rather than a small mountain enclave, to recruit from.
But the realities of player ambition, ‘guidance’ from agents, and virtually guaranteed competition from the big fish mean they’re still highly unlikely to be able to replace that star turn on anything close to a like for like basis.
From today’s action, the Fellaini saga is particularly telling. Drawn out and executed under Evertonian protest though it was, there was a sad and familiar inevitability to the Belgian’s switch to the much bigger pond of Manchester United.
Athletic missed a similar payday, but can look forward to its own irreplaceable star contributing to the cause next weekend. Supporters will know the rest of the squad, too, will only be leaving if a thoroughly silly sum is offered by a ‘whatever it takes’ buyer.
But beyond ‘mere’ rationality, I would even recommend such intransigence when it is nakedly self-defeating.
This was certainly the case with Fernando Llorente. With one year remaining on his contract, Athletic’s refusal to negotiate a transfer fee below the striker’s buyout clause guaranteed his departure to Juventus on a Bosman this summer.
And it wasn’t just that a World Cup winner left Bilbao for nothing – he also spent the entirely of his final campaign sulking on the bench.
But pyrrhic though it was, I was enormously impressed by both the club’s refusal to have its hand forced by financial superiority, and its demonstration that its professed ideals were more than cynical rhetoric.
And surely pride in one’s team – even, and perhaps especially, brutally stubborn pride – is the one key ingredient of football support itself?
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