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Welcome, to my first save of FM19, my beta save which will be a youth only challenge with Athletic Bilbao! Whilst this may be youth only I have loaded Spain as playable and every other nation in Europe as view-only with a database size of 58,000 players to get a detailed level of European players, I will also be documenting any major transfers that happen during each transfer window. The aim? Try and win silverware, develop Basque players, new and existing and see how far we can go before the Fraud Thread kicks off!

Hi I'm currently managing athletic Bilbao, and have noticed that all the Basque players I can buy are from Africa and Asia (I'm not saying that's not possible) and don't come through youth development in Spain/France. I regularly search through all the Basque clubs but they only ever develop Spanish (or French in France) players and not ones with joint nationality with Basque country It would seem reasonable that the Basque teams should develop a reasonable amount of players with joint Basque nationality The teams I search are: Real Sociedad (produce an odd one) and B team, Alaves (none), eibar (odd one), osasuna (none) and their B, Amorebieta; Arenas Club; Barakaldo; Gernika; Leioa;; Real Unión; Vitoria (all none!) Thanks

Thanks to @Ghents and @El Payaso for content! Athletic de Bilbao, historically, are the third most successful football club in Spain. As well as being one of only three clubs never relegated from the top division of La Liga – there are no prizes for knowing the other two – they are also third in the number of titles won over the years. Sadly for their supporters the last title was won, along with the Copa del Rey, as far back as 1984. Most football followers know about the long-standing Basque only policy of Athletic, which has been the subject of much debate, but I suspect that fewer are aware of the benefit that this concentration on home-grown players has had to the Spanish national squad. Athletic Bilbao has had more players representing Spain than any other Spanish club – including Real Madrid and Barcelona. The club has continued its tradition of signing players born in the Basque provinces of Spain or France, although in the late 1980s this was broadened to include players who had moved to the region at a young age. HISTORY OF ATHLETIC BILBAO Athletic Bilbao Football Club - Founded in 1898 by a group of students from the Gymnasium Zamacois – who adopted the English spelling because they had studied in England – Athletic Bilbao merged with Bilbao Football Club, consisting of mainly ex miners from the north-east of England and shipyard workers from Portsmouth and Southampton, in 1902. After calling themselves Club Vizcaya for a season they reverted to the name Athletic Club de Bilbao in 1903. After playing in blue and white stripes for a few seasons, in 1910 they changed to the red and white they still play in today – the possible reasons for this can be found in the Atlético Madrid article, as the two clubs shared founders and have entwined early histories. During the early years, the club was immediately successful, frequently winning the Copa del Rey title. The star player of the time is still remembered in Spanish football today as the leading scorer each year is known as the ‘Pichichi’, which is named after the Athletic player who once scored a hat-trick in a Cup Final. The appointment of English coach Fred Pentland, El Bombín (the Bowler Hat) led to even more success. A great coaching innovator, who was also in charge of Atlético Madrid and the Spanish national team, Pentland was an early advocate of the style that became known in England, much later, as ‘push and run’ when introduced by Arthur Rowe with Tottenham Hotspur. He was not the only English manager employed by the club; in later years, Ronnie Allen and Howard Kendall also coached here. Their choices of headgear, though, went unrecorded! It is, however, known that Kendall found it so frustrating being unable to buy the players he wanted that it was cited as his major reason for leaving the club. Under Pentland’s stewardship, Athletic won the League – of which the team were founder members in 1928 – and the cup on several occasions, doing the ‘double’ in both 1930 and 1931. In the second of these remarkable seasons, Barcelona were beaten by 12 goals to 1 in Bilbao – a result which is never likely to be repeated. All of the games in Bilbao were played at the club’s present stadium, San Mamés, named after a nearby church. This has led to the stadium being known as ‘The Cathedral’, although the atmosphere – especially when Real Madrid are in town – can hardly be compared with one! As well as being known as the ‘Rojiblancos’ because of their colours the team is also referred to as ‘Los Leones’ (the lions) as St Mames himself was an early Christian that the lions had refused to kill. There was a period when the club had to change its name to Atlético Bilbao, as a result of a decision by Franco to outlaw non-Spanish names and languages. During the 1950s, however, the government’s severe restrictions on foreign-born players in the league greatly helped the Basque club who won several league and cup titles in this time and, in 1956, entered the then-named European Cup for the first time. The club’s successes all helped give the Basque people a sense of identity at a time when they felt very isolated in Spain. There was a famous incident in December 1975, just 15 days after the death of Franco, in which Iribar and Kortabarria, rival captains of Athletic and Real Sociedad, carried the Basque flag – illegal at the time – onto the pitch before a local derby. RECENT SUCCESS Bilbao finished up their 2013-14 campaign with a fourth place finish and shot to secure Champion's League football, which they did with a victory over Napoli. Unfortunately Bilbao fell short, finishing third in their group behind both Shakhtar and FC Porto then later were knocked out of the EURO by Serie A side Torino. Bilbao managed to make it to the finals of the Copa del Ray as well, but once again fell short with a 3-1 loss to Barcelona. The club were able to get redemption however, with the ageless Artiz Aduriz scoring a hat-trick in a 4-0 victory against Barcelona in the 2015-2016 Super Cup and also capturing a draw at Camp Nou later in the season. Aduriz ended his resurgent 2015-2016 season with 36 goals in all competitions and getting a call of to the Spain national team for Euro 2016. The club secured a spot in the EURO with a fifth place finish in the 2015-2016 season thanks to not only contributions from Aduriz, but also from some of their more promising first team youth players. In 2016-17 the club enjoyed another consistent season coached by Ernesto Valverde, finishing 7th in the league and requalifying for the Europa League (3rd qualifying round) for 17-18. Heralded as a potential winner of the Europa League in 16-17, the club lost in the round of 32 to Apoel Nicosia in a surprising result. Following the 16-17 season, coach Ernesto Valverde moved on to Barcelona after a successful spell at the club. Athletic made the decision to promote Kuko Ziganda from the B team to take control of the first team squad. RIVALRIES The largest one in Spain sees you facing Real Sociedad in a Basque derby. Other rivalries are with another Basque teams Eibar and Osasuna and also competitive rivalries with Barcelona and Real Madrid. Osasuna and Sociedad in particular are also the other main producers of Basque players, but good luck signing any of them. It's exceedingly difficult to pry players from one club to the other, which is how intense the rivalry is. When playing as Athletic, you can expect to sign players on the odd occasion from these clubs, and it gets easier if you're able to build a solid difference in reputation between the sides, however even at that stage, some players will refuse the move. This is something of an unexpected challenge to many newcomers to managing Athletic, in that the majority of Basque players capable of improving the team do not want to join. WHY ATHLETIC CLUB? It's one of the more challenging saves in all of FM, because you are limited to signing only players with Basque heritage or players in Spain who are no older than 16 years old. It forces you to focus on utilizing what you have in the squad to the best of their ability and developing your youth and figuring out what you want the DNA of the club to be long term. This offers two different ways to play as Athletic Club: 1) Use the signing of Spanish U16 players to provide a wider base to pick from, or for an added challenge... 2) Only sign Basque players of any age, and do not sign any spanish U16 players unless they already hold Basque nationality. Athletic Club have one of the best youth setups in the game, so you can churn out prospects to replenish your first team and keep it home grown. You aren't buying any trophies here with a Tycoon. At the start of the game, some key players are ageing, so you'll need to start preparing for the future...

Amsterdamsche Football Club "Those so-called AFC icons, they say they want the best for the club. They don't have one chainsaw in the back of their cars, but three. [...] It's fine to have criticism, but say it directly to my face. [...] I'm getting sick of this hypocritical behaviour. Next game I won't be the manager anymore." That is what the former AFC manager, Ton Du Chatinier, said in real life after their last league game in the third tier of Dutch football. They are currently near the bottom of that league, while they performed really well last year. Time for me to change things up. AFC is an amateur club that plays in the third tier of Dutch football, called the "Tweede Divisie". They are my most local club, and after having success with them last year I want to try that again this year as my first save for FM18. To get them playable I had to holiday two seasons, since the 2017-2018 season of the Jupiler League, the Dutch 2nd tier, does not have relegation. (Don't ask me why, the Dutch FA is run by idiots... the one good thing about this is that SI actually does follow all these stupid things and implements them in the game). The 2018-2019 season in-game does though, and after about 15 times of reloading I got AFC to be promoted again. Oh, and one more thing. I've been successful in my FM17 careers with my scouting and transfers, so for this save I won't be doing any of that. I won't be signing anyone. Youth Only, baby. [Edit: After the first season I've decided to allow myself to sign players that are born in Amsterdam] [Edit 2: After a while I stopped signing any players and went full youth only again.] Have made myself an Andorran manager as a bit of a call-back to the F.C. Andorra save. Almost all players are on amateur deals, and AFC has become a professional club after getting promoted, so at least there's that. Well, this might be an adventure. New features like dynamics should be easier with all the players being Dutch and all... Just a shame that they are so bad.