Valverde: EL not punishment

Ernesto Valverde insists the Europa League isn't punishment for Athletic Bilbao's failure progress in the Champions League.

The Basque outfit have pedigree in Europe's second-tier competition, as they finished runners-up to Atletico Madrid in the 2011-12 edition.

Consequently, the Coach would relish the opportunity as he urged his players not to underestimate BATE Borisov ahead of Wednesday's encounter.

"We expect a very tough game like the first one, when nothing less than winning was worth anything to BATE," he told journalists at a Press conference.

"Porto and Shakhtar have great forwards and were successful, but I don't want to think that it can be easy.

"The Europa League is very attractive if we qualify for it. Athletic have previously gone very far in that competition.

"However, this is still a Champions League match, and it's taken many years for Bilbao to get here.

"We have to enjoy the match, even if we all wish that we'd done more in this competition.

"Porto were the first to go through and top the group, Shakhtar second. Now it's between third and fourth.

"It seems that we deserve to be in our position, but we're not satisfied with it.

"If we got the win, the intention is to go as far as possible in the Europa League.

"The worst game was certainly against BATE. They were very good and we weren't.

"We hope to be far better than we've been in the middle matches of the group stage.

"If we get carried away because Shakhtar scored seven again them, then we're already on a losing footing.

"We have to buy a lot of intensity because BATE ran lots in the first match.

"We must enforce our style and drive, and the fact that we're playing at our stadium."

Tags Ernesto Valverde
La Liga - Club News