Athletic Club Bilbao striker Aritz Aduriz has praised the new format of the Copa del Rey and believes it is more exciting.
Aduriz scored the first goal of the current La Liga season – netting a spectacular last-minute winner for Los Leones against Barcelona on the opening night of the season.
Athletic however have had more success in this season’s Copa del Rey and are through to the last four of the competition, having beaten the Catalan giants with a similarly dramatic late winner last Thursday.
The Blaugrana followed Real Madrid in crashing out of the competition at the quarter-final stage in a competition which has been full of upsets.
Atletico de Madrid lost to third tier side Cultural y Leonesa while semi-finalists Mirandes, from the second tier, have defeated full-strength sides from Celta de Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal.
Granada – Athletic’s semi-final opponents – defeated competition holders Valencia at the quarter-final stage.
“The new (Copa) format is not discredited, on the contrary, it is better with these results,” Aduriz explained at the Revista Panenka gala on Monday night, as cited by Marca.
“We are a little tired of seeing Barcelona and Real Madrid win everything and it is nice to see competitions with more dynamism and in a similar format to that in England.
“Can we win it? I have been fantasizing about this for a long time. At the beginning, it was a fantasy, and it may be that it is closer now, although it is very difficult.
“It is the dream of everyone to win a title and right now that is where we are, we will fight for it.”
