Only three clubs have never been relegated from La Liga. Two of those are Real Madrid and Barcelona. The other is Athletic Bilbao.
What is remarkable about the latter club is the way in which they have eight Spanish league titles and 23 Copa del Rey trophies while steadfastly maintaining a player recruitment policy which restricts them to players from the Basque Country or of Basque descent.
"What Athletic Bilbao have done is extra-ordinary," Spanish football writer Sid Lowe told Off The Ball of a club which reached last season's Champions League group stages.
"I think what they have also done is come to the conclusion that while there are significant disadvantages of having a policy that you only play with Basque players and players who come through the youth system - and the definition of Basque is elastic at times - first of all they would rather maintain their identity and therefore they accept those risks and secondly they've come to realise that by opening up your market and going for other types of players, you don't necessarily buy the success or buy the protection that you believe that you may well buy. Because if you're buying mediocre players from other parts of the world, it may well be that it doesn't necessarily improve the level of the team."
Lowe also explained the benefits of the policy in terms of the intra-team cohesion it can bring for Athletic, while he also spoke about how fellow big Basque club Real Sociedad, now managed by David Moyes, fits into the picture, having had a similar Basque-only policy many decades ago.
But he also spoke about how Athletic have increasingly played hard-ball when it comes to bids for their players.
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
