Athletic Club Cantera Work Part Deux: International Guys

In the last Athletic post I talked about how the club cemented most of their existence in the cantera work, how the philosophy made the youth system vital for Athletic's survival.

Now, many people might think that we sign players just because they are Basque born or raised but not because of their technical qualities. Nothing can be farther from the truth than that.

Athletic's youth system is a dog eat dog world, where kids from all over Euskadi work gruesomely for the dream of making it to the first team, some stay due to their willingness to put on some hard work (and you have people like Koikili or Toquero in the first team to show that) but it is mostly based on two characteristics: physical strength (Basque football is uniquely based on power due to the size of the players) and ball technique.

Sometimes we get good generations, sometimes we get bad ones, all in all we've never been relegated to La Liga Adelante.

The success of a cantera is shown on how many people made it to the first team (7/8 players out of Athletic's Starting XI are from the youth system) and how many people are singled out for the National Teams, with the quality Spain has now, being called is a huge honor and the following Athletic players have been called in the 2010/2011 season:

Senior Squad: Fernando Llorente, Javi Martínez (WORLD CHAMPIONS), Andoni Iraola
U-21: Javi Martínez, Mikel San José, Iker Muniain, Ander Herrera (EURO CHAMPIONS), Ander Iturraspe, Igor Martínez
U-20: Aitor Fernández.
U-19: Enric Saborit, Sergio Mendigutxia, Jon Aurtenetxe, Diego Royo, Eric Morán, Jonás Ramalho.
U-18: Iñigo Ruiz de Galarreta, Urtzi Erleaga.
U-17: Aymeric Laporte, Guillermo Fernández, Néstor Salinas.
U-16: Iker Undabarrena, Aitor Seguin, Markel Etxebarria.

As the call-ups show, Athletic has now a young competitive club and the younger guys are slowly but surely stepping up to the plate, there's a good present and a bright future for the club and for our National Team.

Spain U-20 World Cup Call-up

The RFEF finally got the list of players that will play the upcoming U-20 World Cup in Colombia, the base group continues with those players that didn't move up to the U-21 level.

C. ATLÉTICO DE MADRID SAD: Jorge Pulido Mayoral and Jorge Resurrección Merodio “Koke”
ATHLETIC CLUB: Aitor Fernández Abarisketa
FC BARCELONA: Martín Montoya i Torralbo, Marc Bartra Aregall, Marc Muniesa Martínez, Oriol Romeu Vidal, Sergi Roberto Carnicer, Cristian Tello Herrera.
SL BENFICA: Rodrígo Moreno Machado
RCD ESPANYOL DE BARCELONA SAD: Jordi Amat Maas, Álvaro Vázquez García
HÉRCULES CF SAD: Francisco Femenia Far “Kiko”
LIVERPOOL FC: Daniel Pacheco Lobato
MÁLAGA CF SAD: José Luis García del Pozo “Recio”
REAL BETIS BALOMPIÉ SAD: Ezequiel Calvente Criado
REAL MADRID CF: Fernando Pacheco Flores and Sergio Canales Madrazo
SEVILLA FC SAD: Antonio Manuel Luna Rodríguez
VALENCIA CF SAD: Francisco Román Alarcón Suárez “Isco”
REAL ZARAGOZA SAD: Alejandro Sánchez Benítez “Alex”

As expected, only one of the U21 Winners is playing again, Martín Montoya, the rest didn't go there.

The RFEF had a hard time picking up players for the U-19, U-20 and U-21 tournaments since they were all pretty close, I guess one of the reasons why Canales didn't go to the European was that they were saving him to have a experienced man in the midfield for the WC.

La Masía keeps dominating the Spanish call ups and some of their young up and comers will have the chance to prove themselves in a big international stage, I'm looking forward to see what the famed Bartra-Muniesa duo can do, according to many people they are the Puyol/Piqué of the future.

Koke was one of the good surprises of the season and fully deserves to be on the team, he's doing a great job for Atleti and I think many people will be watching his performance to bid for him in the upcoming transfer window.

I am really not sure why Dani Pacheco was called since he didn't really play for Liverpool at all this season, maybe Rafinha would have been better for the team since he's played this season?

Thankfully neither Iker Muniain nor Thiago Alcántara were called, they would have ended dead on their feet by the time next season comes.

Spain is in group C and will debut against Costa Rica in Manizales on July 31st, they also have Australia and Ecuador on their group, on paper they should win it and move onto the next round.