Europa Rehearsal
By the time Spurs host Athletic Club Bilbao in our traditional pre-season home friendly on Saturday tea-time, both clubs will know their opponents in the final qualifying round of this season's Europa League matches. (Draw being made at 12 noon Friday 5th August)
Bilbao qualified in 6th place of last season's "La Liga", and unlike Athletico Madrid (who were seventh), have not had to play in any earlier qualifying round. It is even possible that the two clubs could meet again, provided they both make the group stages. Both clubs are amongst the top 25 seeds in the Europa League, so cannot meet in the qualifying stage. Spurs are third seeds, with a co-efficient of 78.157, whilst Bilbao are 25th with a rating of 24.465. Bilbao missed out on European football last season, and their last excursion was in the 2009-10 Europa League, when they got through to the second round (post group stage), but lost 5-1 on aggregate to Anderlecht.
Bilbao is situated in the Basque region of Spain, and was founded in 1898, given the English spelling "Athletic" and not "Athletico" probably because the better connected local citizens sent their children to the UK for their education in some skills. Partly as a result of their travels these people formed a football club, which has played in the top division of "La Liga" since its inception in 1928. The only other teams to have played at the top level from the start are the famous Barcelona and Real Madrid. The use of the non-Spanish club name (Athletic) was banned in the days of General Franco, but re-instated after Franco's death.
Bilbao have won their league title 8 times. The last win was in 1983-4. In the same season, they won the Copa Del Rey, for the 23rd and last time. They have competed 4 times in the Champions League and 13 times in the UEFA Cup/Europa League. The club's best result in Europe was to be runners-up in the UEFA Cup in 1977, when they were beaten over two legs on away goals by Juventus.
Bilbao are known as "The Lions", because their stadium was built near a church called Saint Mammes, who was an early Christian thrown to the lions by the Romans. The lions refused to eat Mammes, who was made a Saint. Atheltic's San Mames Stadium holds 39,750, but like spurs they have plans to have a new stadium. In the case of Bilbao, their plans are definite and they will be playing in the "San Mames Barria" stadium from the 2014-15 season. It will be a five-star venue, holding 55,000.
Bilbao have a firm policy of only using Basque-born players, but this was stretched a few years ago to allow those with Basque-born grandparents to play for the club. Hence the entire Bilbao squad is of Spanish origin, and by far the majority of their managers have been Spanish. The current manager though is Argentinean - Marcelo Biesla.
To the best of my knowledge, Spurs have never met Bilbao in either competition, or a friendly game. There is however, a Basque Country national football team, which has carried various names, one of which was "Euskadi". Thus players from the Basque area of Northern Spain and Southern France qualify to play for this team, which is not affiliated to FIFA, or UEFA. Bilbao had 10 of their players in the Basque Country squad for a recent game against Venezuela. That squad incidentally included Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso.
Spurs did meet Euskadi in a friendly on 10th May 1988, and lost 4-0. The game was played in Bilbao, who no doubt dominated the Euskadi team. Spurs had finished 13th that season, and had only managed one win in their last 8 league games. Bilbao finished fourth in La Liga, and bearing in mind that another Basque team (Real Sociedad) were runners-up in La Liga, there was a clear gap in form, and probably desire on the day in question. The Spurs team was:- Mimms (sub Parks); Statham, Thomas (sub Stimson), Fenwick, Metgod (sub Ruddock), Mabbutt, walsh, P. Allen (sub Claesen), Waddle, Samways, and Hodge (sub Howells, sub Moran)
Three of Bilbao's current squad have playedd for the full Spanish International team. Striker Fernando Llorente (full name Fernando Llorente Torres) is 26 and scored 18 goals in 37 league games last season, having a total of 64 league goals in 204 such appearances. Clearly he will be one to watch on Saturday. Midfielders Andoni Iraola and Javi Martinez also played a full part in Bilbao's league campaign, each scoring 4 goals. Other significant goal-scoring contributions came from midfielders David Lopez (6), Igor Gabilondo (5), Kaizka Toquero (7), and striker Iker Muniain (5).
Bilbao's league programme starts a week later than Spurs (with an away game to Real Madrid!), and therefore they will be at a later stage in their pre-season preparations to Spurs. Across the Internet there has been a lot of frustration and angst at the perceived lack of incoming transfer activity by Spurs, and the failure to get rid of perceived deadwood such as David Bentley and Robbie Keane. The Luka Modric saga has dominated the foobtall headlines during virtually the whole summer, and it will be good to see him on parade on Saturday, hopefully to a decent reception. After all, he has not submitted any transfer request.
Hopefully, we will see something resembling a Spurs first team squad for this game, which is being televised by ITV 4, but we all know, the real action begins on Saturday 13th August, when we host Everton!
There will be a full report on the Bilbao game on Sunday on Spurs Odyssey.
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