Iker Muniain- His time to Basque in the sun
For some clubs, the day that a ‘local lad’ makes his debut is a rare moment of pride, however, for Athletic Bilbao, it’s just part of the process.
Since 1912, Los Leones have had one rule (well they probably have quite a lot more but for the point of this piece it’s one), if you want to play for Athletic Club you’ve got to be Basque.
The ‘Cantera’ rule has morphed and evolved over time to allow for players who have been trained in Bilbao’s academy to be considered Basque, much like the homegrown rule that we commonly see in the Premier League, but it is still a point of pride for the fans and the club when the next great youth player rolls off the production line.
Some may see this rule as a hindrance, especially with how globalised the game has become over the past 30 years and bar two Supercopa de Espana’s, Bilbao has not won a trophy since 1984.
However, Athletic Club, alongside Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, have never been relegated from La Liga despite being one of their founding members.
It may not be the best system but it’s not the worst and as long as the club stays afloat, keeping its identity is more important to them than any piece of silverware.
If you follow me on Twitter you will have seen me complaining recently about how Paris Saint-Germain completely failed to bring through youth into their first team.
Furthermore, they consistently miss out on bringing talented youth players in the Paris area into their academy. For example, Paul Pogba, Ibrahima Konate and Jules Kounde (just to name a few) grew up in the French capital but were snapped up by other clubs.
Athletic Bilbao is on the complete other end of the spectrum. If PSG’s youth strategy is The Wiggles’ ‘Fruit Salad’ then Bilbao’s is Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Athletic Club maintains a watchful eye over the entire Basque region and if they see promise they try their hardest to make sure they end up playing in the club’s famous red and white.
Over the past decade, several top talents have broken onto the scene and either become longstanding parts of Bilbao’s first team or been sold for big money to Europe’s top clubs.
Javi Martinez was sold to Bayern Munich for £36m while Aymeric Laporte departed to Manchester City for a fee of £58.5m (both fees according to Transfermarkt) while Inaki Williams has become such a key piece in the first team that early this season he broke the record for most consecutive La Liga games played in a row, previously held by Juanan Larranaga who played 202.
To put that into perspective, Williams has not missed a La Liga game in over SIX years, avoiding injury or suspension. His record currently stands at 332 games.
But this piece isn’t about the stars who got out of Bilbao nor Williams who has grabbed the headlines across the past few years. No, this piece is about Iker Muniain.
Now if I was to say Muniain was under-appreciated, Athletic Bilbao fans would probably take issue with that statement. He is beloved by the Basque fanbase and that in many ways is due to the ‘Cantera’ policy I spoke about at the start of the article. The players are loved by the fans because they are part of the same community and culture.
But from the outside and in the greater footballing world, I feel Muniain has never truly been given his flowers. From the minute he stepped onto a football field he always lived in the shadow of others.
So let’s start from the beginning. The year is 2009, and the fixture, a Europa League qualifying match against BSC Young Boys at home.
In the 59th minute, winger Gaizka Toquero makes way for a 16-year-old Muniain, who upon entering the field of play he became the youngest player in 94 years to play for Los Leones. Bilbao lost the game 1–0 but in the return leg in Switzerland, he scored the opening goal in a 2–1 win which saw the Spanish side progress to the playoff round of the competition.
The following month he became the club’s youngest ever player in La Liga and he scored his first goal in the competition in October, becoming the youngest ever goalscorer.
The records would continue to fall as Muniain star was coming to rise. But then his promising career received the kiss of death sometime around 2011.
As an exciting young winger blessed with technical ability and neat footwork he became the latest player to be dubbed the ‘The next Lionel Messi’, in this case, the Spanish version, and so the shadow of the Argentinian began to loom over the player.
There was, and probably still is, an obsession in football to find the next Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but in the late noughties and early 2010s, it happened at a ridiculous rate.
Tifo Football did a great video a few months back listing off the players that were anchored with the label and of the named players, only Mohammed Salah (The Egyptian Messi) was able to truly surpass the hype; ironically and almost predictably as a completely different style of player to the Argentinian.
But players like Alen Halilovic (Croatian Messi), Marko Marin (German Messi), Gerard Deulofeu (Catalan Messi) and Bojan Krkic (The Original Next Messi) failed to get anywhere near the stratosphere of the six-time Ballon D’Or winner.
Muniain to his credit held his own longer than most under the weight of expectation and was part of an impressive Athletic Bilbao side under Marcelo Bielsa that shocked Manchester United in the Europa League in 2012 and went a long way to adding credence to the tag of the ‘Next Messi’.
His dribbling ability was lauded as he left even the most seasoned defenders in knots and Rafael on that night was no different. With the scores level at 2–2, United believed they had weathered the storm from the north of Spain but San Iker thought differently, grabbing the winning goal in the 90th minute and silencing Old Trafford.
Sir Alex Ferguson put it down to bad defending due to the absence of Rio Ferdinand and a dubious call from the referee as Patrice Evra had lost his boot before the goal.
However, Ferguson probably knew behind his usual calm demeanour that he didn’t have an answer for Bielsa’s Bilbao and it was confirmed the following week when they won 2–1 at the San Mames stadium and knocked United out of the Europa League.
In hindsight, it was probably the first signs of the cracks beginning to show in what was an imperious United team (the same team that would go on to lose an eight-point lead in the Premier League and hand Manchester City the title aka the only time I’ve ever cried at football).
Muniain finished the 2011/12 season with five goals and three assists in the Europa League, which piqued the interest of many clubs around Europe who considered signing the winger, but only two goals and three assists in La Liga.
He only scored a single goal and registered a single assist in La Liga the following season. Was everyone wrong to think Muniain was the next big thing?
Well, he put some of those doubts to rest in the 2013/14 season where he offered up a career-best seven goals and four assists in the competition.
And then disaster struck for Muniain. He suffered his first ACL injury.
Over the next four seasons, Muniain would miss 75 games through injury, 59 of which were due to two separate ACL ruptures. Within this spell, he did have an injury-free season in 2017/18 where he put up a respectable seven goals and five assists.
During this time two major things would happen. Inaki Williams would make his debut for the first team, stealing away Muniain’s ‘starboy’ status and Aritz Aduriz would gain the world's attention for his incredible goalscoring exploits at his advancing age.
Both would push Muniain further to the wayside and make him a member of the team’s supporting cast rather than their main man. But to quote the Watcher in the Marvel Series ‘What IF’:
“Every journey has a beginning, but change one step along the way, and you can end up at a very different destination. Heroes are not born, they’re forged in darkness. Shaped in battle. Defined by sacrifice.”
Muniain was linked with Liverpool for a very long time and when these injuries began those links of course went away (though he was linked again in 2018 when his contract was set to expire before he renewed).
The What IF situation there is an interesting exercise in itself, it would be unlikely that Liverpool would have signed either Salah or Sadio Mane and who knows what the result would have been.
But Muniain of course remained with the Basque club, he struggled and worked hard to regain fitness and when he took the field again his relationship with the club’s fans was even stronger than ever. And his commitment saw him become club captain in 2019.
There’s something that drives Muniain that you can’t quite quantify. Maybe it’s a sense of pride he feels as a Basque man representing a Basque club.
The rivalry between Real Sociedad and Athletic Club has always been good-natured, with a sense of kinsmanship between the two clubs rather than one of being bitter enemies.
The most famous example of this was in 1976, Jose Angel Iribar from Athletic and Real Sociedad’s Inaxio Kortabarria walked out holding the Basque flag (or Ikurrina). This was a statement of unity but also a statement that it was the Basque region against Spain, as the gesture was illegal under Franco’s regime, even though the dictator had just died.
However, you’d expect that this ‘kinsmanship’ would go out the window once there was silverware available; as was the case in 2021 as Athletic and Sociedad faced each other in the 2020 Copa del Rey final (it was however played in April 2021 due to COVID).
Los Leones lost 1–0 and all of their players exited down the tunnel, defeated and dejected, except for one. There at the edge of the pitch, holding the consolation trophy and watching the entirety of the celebrations respectfully was Muniain, honouring the success of his Basque brothers.
Athletic would reach the final once again in the 2020/21 season, but lost 4–0 to Barcelona. Silverware again alluded them… until the Supercopa de Espana came around.
(Btw side note, with COVID Spanish cup competitions, have been confusing as hell to navigate, so apologies if I’ve messed anything up here.)
Bilbao had beaten Real Madrid 2–1 in the semi-final thanks to a brace from Raul Garcia and again faced Barcelona in the final. It seemed the Catalan club had won the game in normal time 2–1 until Asier Villabre levelled in the 90th minute to send it to extra-time.
And then who else but Inaki Williams (I bet you thought I would say Iker Muniain, but he did at least assist Villabre’s equaliser) won the game in the first half of extra time.
As the captain, Muniain lifted the trophy, but Williams of course was the hero that day.
So we come to the 2021/22 season. For context, Athletic Club aren’t the most proficient goal scorers in La Liga, in fact, their highest total over the past five years has been 46 goals last season.
As I said before, only being able to take players from the Basque region has its limitations, and besides Inaki Williams, the only reasonable forwards the region has developed over the past 10 years in Antoine Griezmann and Oyzarabal have both played for Sociedad.
This season didn’t play out much differently with the club only managing 43 goals as they placed eighth in La Liga, outside the European spots. Inaki Williams was their top scorer in the league with eight goals.
So another middling season in Bilbao for Muniain eh? Well not quite.
Muniain put up a career-best tally of six goals and 12 assists for Athletic Club, 10 of those assists coming in La Liga from a whopping 97 created chances according to BBC Sport (on one hand he is the club's set-piece taker, but on the other, that’s 39 more than any other player who has registered more than six assists this season in the competition).
Almost a decade later Muniain was the main man once again. He has finally gained the wider appreciation that he probably once craved as a younger player on the European stage.
But his story is one where the journey feels like it’s worth more than the destination. He has made 517 appearances in his career, scoring 74 goals and providing 65 assists, it’s not an amazing return, but it’s honest work.
However, he has captured the hearts and imaginations of those who watch him. From children to the elderly all have been enamoured by both his skill on the ball and his dedication not just to the club but also to the culture of the Basque region.
Football fans often speak about how players should chase trophies and move to bigger and better things in search of them, but what Muniain has with Athletic Club is in my opinion, worth so much more.
At 29 he probably has quite a few years left under his belt before he eventually hangs up his boots, but hopefully, he’ll spend that time at San Mames as a one-club man. Then he can continue to be the embodiment of the best of the ‘Cantera’ policy and an inspiration for every kid growing up in the Basque region hoping one day to step onto the field for their local team.
