Athletic Club Femenino is the
women's football section of
Athletic Bilbao, competing in
Liga F
The Primera División de la Liga de Fútbol Femenino, currently known as Liga F (finetwork Liga F for sponsorship reasons), is the highest level of league competition for women's football in Spain. It is the women's equivalent of the men's La L ...
. Athletic is one of the most successful women's teams in Spain, with five championships. Just as with the men's team, their
official policy is to sign players native to or trained in football in the
greater Basque Country.
[A new Cathedral: Athletic Club’s move to a new San Mamés]
Simon Lloyd, Joe.co.uk The team plays at the club's facilities in
Lezama
Lezama is a town and municipality located in the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, northern Spain. It is home to the training headquarters of the football team Athletic Bilbao, and is accessible by bus - Bizkai ...
on the outskirts of
Bilbao
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.
History
The team was founded in 2000 as
Leioa
Leioa ( es, Lejona) is a municipality in Biscay, Basque Country, in northern Spain. It is located south of Getxo and Berango delimitating east and south with Erandio, Portugalete and Sestao. Today it is part of the Bilbao conurbation. Its populat ...
EFT after
CD Sondika disbanded its women's team, which had played in the defunct División de Honor in the 1990s. After Leioa gained promotion to the new
Superliga Femenina
The Primera División de la Liga de Fútbol Femenino, currently known as Liga F (finetwork Liga F for sponsorship reasons), is the highest level of sports league, league competition for women's football in Spain. It is the women's equivalent of t ...
in just two years, it was absorbed by Athletic Bilbao. At that time a
reserve team
In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...
, ''
Athletic B'', was also introduced – they currently compete in Group 2 of the
Segunda División
The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...
, the regionalised second tier.
In their
debut season Athletic won the championship, and successfully defended the title in the next two seasons, becoming the first team to be awarded the trophy to keep permanently. After a disappointing 2006 season, Athletic won its fourth title in
2007. As a result of their title wins they made four appearances in the
UEFA Women's Cup
The UEFA Women's Champions League, previously called the UEFA Women's Cup (2001–2009), is a European women's association football competition. It involves the top club teams from countries affiliated with the European governing body UEFA.
T ...
, being knocked out in the group stages by
1. FFC Frankfurt
Eintracht Frankfurt is a German women's association football club based in Frankfurt. Its first team currently plays in the German top flight, Frauen-Bundesliga. From 1998 to 2020, the club was known as 1. FFC Frankfurt.
Eintracht have won sev ...
in 2004,
Djurgårdens IF
Djurgårdens Idrottsförening, commonly known simply as Djurgårdens IF, Djurgården (), and (especially locally) Djurgår'n (), Dif or DIF – is a Swedish sports association with several sections, located in Stockholm.
Name
The club is name ...
in 2005,
SV Saestum in 2006 and
ASDCF Bardolino
Società Sportiva Dilettantistica Women Hellas Verona, known as Hellas Verona or simply Verona, is a women's football club based in Verona, Italy, currently playing in Serie B.
Founded in 1995, the team won the Serie A championship five times a ...
in 2008.
Athletic finished third in the next four championships between 2008 and 2011. In
2012 they were runners-up, and reached the
Copa de la Reina
Copa or COPA may refer to:
COPA
COPA may refer to:
* Computer Operator Programming Assistant. trade of ITI
* Child Online Protection Act, a former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the internet
* Canadian Owners and Pilots Ass ...
final for the
first time, losing to
RCD Espanyol
Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as Espanyol, is a professional sports club based in Barcelona, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish football league s ...
after extra time. On 5 January 2013 the team celebrated its tenth anniversary, beating
Arsenal LFC in a friendly match. They were cup runners-up again in
2014, this time losing on
penalties
Penalty or The Penalty may refer to:
Sports
* Penalty (golf)
* Penalty (gridiron football)
* Penalty (ice hockey)
* Penalty (rugby)
* Penalty (rugby union)
* Penalty kick (association football)
* Penalty shoot-out (association football)
* Penalty ...
to
FC Barcelona
Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football.
Found ...
, having finished second behind the same club in
the league
''The League'' is an American sitcom that aired on FX and later FXX from October 29, 2009, to December 9, 2015, for a total of seven seasons. The series, set in Chicago, Illinois, is a semi-improvised comedy show about a fantasy football leagu ...
.
On 5 June 2016, Athletic won its
fifth league title, nine years after its last success. They competed in the UEFA Women's Champions League the following season, where they were eliminated by Danish champions Fortuna Hjorring in the
Round of 32
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...
.
In June 2017, the club announced they would introduce a second reserve team for the coming season, made up of girls aged 13 to 15. Later that year, a club proposal to enter another girls team (12/13 years) into a local boys' youth league was rejected by the provincial council.
In January 2019, the club broke the European record for attendance at a women's football match with 48,121 spectators at
San Mamés for a
Copa de la Reina quarter-final fixture, a 2–0 loss to
Atlético Madrid. (however, it only stood for a few months until Barcelona played Atlético in front of a 60,739 crowd). That match was the 14th played by the women's team in the two versions of the club's main stadium since the first in 2003, with three more played there during the next year.
Season to season
As Leioa EFT
As Athletic Bilbao
Honours
Titles
Official competitions
*
Primera División (5):
2002–03,
2003–04,
2004–05,
2006–07,
2015–16
*
Euskal Herria Cup (7): 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Invitational competitions
*
Sport Mundi Tournament
The Sport Mundi Tournament is a Spanish season (sports), pre-season women's soccer, women's football invitational charitable tournament held every August in Irun and Hondarribia since 2005.
It is contested by four teams each year, usually includin ...
(4): 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012
*
COTIF: 2015
*
Teresa Herrera Trophy
The Teresa Herrera Trophy ( es, Trofeo Teresa Herrera) is an annual pre-season football tournament hosted by Deportivo La Coruña at the Estadio Riazor.
Established in 1946, it is the third oldest professional football tournament in Spain (behind ...
: 2017, 2018
*
Ramón de Carranza Trophy
The Ramón de Carranza Trophy ( es, Trofeo Ramón de Carranza) is a pre-season football tournament organised by Cádiz City Hall, in memory of its former mayor, Ramón de Carranza – after whom the Cádiz F.C. stadium used to be named as well ...
: 2019
UEFA competition record
Players
Current squad
''As of 8 September 2022''
Out on Loan
Reserve team
Former players
''For details of current and former players, see
:Athletic Bilbao (women) players.''
See also
*
Athletic–Barcelona rivalry
*
Women's Basque derby
References
External links
UEFA profileAthletic Clubat ''Txapeldunak''
*From official website:
*
*
*
*
*
{{Primera División (women) teamlist
Women's football clubs in Spain
Athletic Bilbao
2002 establishments in Spain
Primera División (women) clubs
Football clubs in the Basque Country (autonomous community)
Association football clubs established in 2002