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FM11: The Official Athletic Club Bilbao Thread- the "Basque National Team"


ArranoBeltza

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Holy shitsnacks, I had no idea. Are they allowed to do so in real life, though? Isn't it cheating?
a bit maybe, normaly in this case it would be players that have played for the Athletic cantera or other basque youth teams from a very young age, younger then what you could fit into the game, which is why they went with this:
You can sign Spanish players that do not have Basque second nationality if they are 16 or under.
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Holy shitsnacks, I had no idea. Are they allowed to do so in real life, though? Isn't it cheating?
Not really. They describe a Basque player as any player born in the Basque lands, has any Basque grandparent, raised in the Basque lands or learned their trade (football) in the Basque lands.

That said, it does elude me why Diego Forlan does not have Basque nationality in game, considering his father is Basque.

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Not really. They describe a Basque player as any player born in the Basque lands, has any Basque grandparent, raised in the Basque lands or learned their trade (football) in the Basque lands.

That said, it does elude me why Diego Forlan does not have Basque nationality in game, considering his father is Basque.

Had no idea of Forlán's heritage either, interesting. Does the club define exactly the parameters for recruitment anywhere? Would like for my save to be as true to life as possible, even though the possibility of under-16's poaching seems like a bit of a half-arsed measure as FM11 doesn't do very young players as Falahk pointed out. How about someone like Antoine Griezmann of Sociedad? He was persuaded to join Sociedad at a young age (14 or 15), would he not then meet the criteria of having "learnt his trade" in the Basque Country? He doesn't qualify in the game though.

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Griezmann qualifies as Basque player and Athletic considered bidding for him. However there was mixed response from fans since he is French without Basque roots and not born in Basque territory. Also Athletic doesn't sign Basques from abroad. Good recent examples are Forlan and Otamendi. Also there was another Basque from Argentina NT few years ago who they didn't want to consider. South America has a fair share of Basques who could widen player pool.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The club can do it IRL since they changed their cantera policy. If it's allowed, it has to be done. Good Basque regens are way too few and far between, even if you ignore that they won't come to you if they did exist!

Its a bit of a problem with the game and its interpretation of Ahtletic's policy if it's impossible to get enough Basque players to supplement the squad. As I said above, usually the finance and traditions of Athletic can sway the directors and players at Sociedad and Osasuna when they have interest in signing someone, even though they are rivals and similar in on-field quality. If anything, Athletic's players mostly come from their own youth system so in FM that should possibly be tweaked upwards so their regens produce about one first-team prospect per season, which seems to be less than it does at present.

As for your claim that Athletic have changed their cantera policy, can you show me your evidence of this? I haven't seen anything to suggest this has changed, and looking at their youth squads there do not seem to be any significant differences, i.e. Castilians flooding in. I imagine the supporters would go berserk if Athletic's policy actually mirrored that used by FM managers.

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All very interesting, had no idea of either Forlán's nor Otamendi's heritage.. Another question, does anyone else create a second manager and use it to manage Bilbao Athletic whilst also managing the first team?

Yeah I have, it sorts out the 'Available for B Team' problems and lets you really develop the youth prospects as you would like, but takes a while playing all the games! In the end I won the Segunda in 2015, 2017 and 2018 with Bilbao Athletic and the Liga in 2017, 2018 (plus Copa) and 2019 (plus Copa) with Athletic after a few 2nd-places before. Most of the Bilbao 2015 players went on to make up the 2018 Athletic team which is the whole objective, so I was really chuffed. Mind you, I wouldn't say the team was quite good enough to dominate as much as I did so it was a wee bit hollow, a reflection on the AI not keeping up.

Havent played it much since then, because the older half of the 2017 team (Llorente, Amorebieta, Castillo, Carlos Martinez) retired in 2019 and the younger regens in the squad don't quite measure up, though the first XI is strong. The way I see it, if I carry it on either I will fail to maintain the very high standards which would be a shame, or I will keep winning with a subs-standard team which would be unrealistic and ruin the thing for me.

I think it's Forlan's maternal grandmother who is (French) Basque, so its not exactly obvious. But he has said previously that he would be interested in playing for Athletic and who knows, he might turn up there one day if he still wants to go and Athletic decide they want to sign him, which they can do if they like. At this stage it would be a step down from Inter but he might be around at a good level for another 5 year, he's a good athlete and his game was never really about pace.

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