Athletic's academy is the indisputable leader among Europe’s top five leagues

The Demographic Atlas produced by prestigious Swiss research centre CIES Football Observatory revealed that Athletic is the team that uses its youth players the most in Europe's five big leagues, with players developed at Lezama having featured in 63.9% of all the minutes played by our team in LaLiga so far this season.

Following Athletic (63.9 %) in LaLiga's top five are FC Barcelona (49.3 %), RCD Espanyol (40 %), Real Sociedad (38.8 %) and Valencia CF (37.5 %). 

The CIES Football Observatory follows UEFA's criteria as to whether a footballer is an academy product or not, considering as such those who have played in a club's teams for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21.

Therefore, the figures in this report are based on the following 15 current Athletic Club squad members who have featured in LaLiga 2024/25: Unai Simón, Agirrezabala, Vivian, Paredes, Yeray, Núñez, Sancet, Ruiz de Galarreta, Jauregizar, Prados, Unai Gómez, Canales, Iñaki Williams, Nico Williams and Guruzeta. 

It also leaves out others who, either because they were at the club's academy and left before they turned 15, joined the academy at a later age, or were developed at partner clubs, did not played three full seasons at Athletic Club between the ages 15 and 21.

For that reason, there are footballers who have played for youth teams at Lezama, such as Iñigo Lekue, Mikel Vesga and Yuri, that do not appear among the 15 above. Futhermore, it does not include those that have not made appearances in LaLiga 2024/25 before 19/02/2025, the date that period analysed in the report ends.