More than a century ago, in 1920, Francisco Bru, who had been a soccer player and then a referee, and who in his first game in black showed the players a gun so they knew who was in charge, was in charge of selecting the soccer players who would attend. to Spain’s first official event, the Antwerp Olympic Games. Born in Madrid, Catalan for all intents and purposes, Bru decided to have 13 Basque players on a list of 19. There were five from Real Sociedad, four from Athletic, two from Arenas de Getxo and two from Real Unión de Irún.
Basque football dominated in the second decade of the 20th century. Of the last ten Cup titles – the League was not played then – eight had been for their teams. Despite territorial tensions, there was no discussion. Spain was runner-up. At that time the legend of the Spanish fury arose. There was another player from a Basque team, René Petit, from Real Unión, who played in Antwerp with the French team, because he had been born in Dax (France), on a trip with his parents who lived in Hondarribia.
104 years later, in a national team event, Real is once again the team that supplies the most players to the squad (Remiro, Zubimendi, Merino, Oyarzabal and Le Normand), although not all of them are Basque. Athletic, who had not contributed three players to the list since the 1988 World Cup in France, do so again (Unai Simón, Vivian and Nico Williams), and are equal to Real Madrid, the League and Champions League champions. Basque football is greening. Also on the list is Aymeric Laporte, raised in Lezama. With Athletic and Real classified fifth and sixth respectively, and the Bilbao team, as winner of the Cup, Luis de la Fuente, also trained in the red and white youth team, rewards the work of the main northern teams.
However, it is not a record for either club. The maximum number that Real achieved was six players selected for the 1982 World Cup that was played in Spain. The San Sebastian team had won the last two League titles and José Emilio Santamaría had Arconada, Zamora, Satrustegui, López Ufarte, Alonso and Uralde for the event. It was not a good experience for the national team, weighed down by doubts and which managed to advance to the second phase almost by carom, after drawing with the very weak Honduras, winning after a controversial arbitration against Yugoslavia, and losing to Northern Ireland.
Two years later, in the European Championship in France, Miguel Muñoz trusted four Athletic players –Zubizarreta, Goikoetxea, Urkiaga and Sarabia–, and Luis Arconada from Real. The European commitment came immediately after the red and white double in the League and Cup.
On this occasion, Spain reached the final at the Parc des Princes against France.
The successes of Athletic before the Civil War also influenced the spirit of the selectors. Five players from Bilbao attended the 1934 World Cup in Italy, and four participated in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, the next one Spain played. It was the famous goal by Zarra, a red and white star. In any case, the most important presence of Athletic players occurred three years earlier, in January 1947, in a friendly match against Portugal (1-4), in which six red and white players played – Nando, Bertol, Iriondo, Gainza , Panizo and Zarra – and another one, goalkeeper Lezama, stayed on the bench.
Since 1980, the year in which the first final phase of a Euro Cup was played with at least eight teams, Spain has been represented in all editions except 1992, and in all of them there were footballers from the two main Basque teams, except in that of 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. In the rest there was at least one Athletic player; La Real was left without a call-up in four games.
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