Athletic Bilbao beaten 4-2 at Paris Saint-Germain
Thursday 15 December 2011
Already-qualified Athletic Bilbao went down 4-2 to Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes in their final Europa League Group F game after boss Marcelo Bielsa fielded a team comprising mainly of youngsters. However, despite victory for the big-spending French club, who had invested €85m in players during the summer, they crashed out of the competition following Salzburg’s 3-2 away win at Slovan Bratislava.
The Basques got off to a dream start when defender Jon Aurtenetxe headed home from a corner with just three minutes on the clock, but PSG had turned the scoreline around by the break with goals from €42m man Javier Pastore on 21 minutes and Mathieu Bodmer just before half-time. David López then levelled for Bilbao 10 minutes after the restart but, after Nené’s miss from the penalty spot, an own goal from Iñigo Pérez and Guillaume Hoarau’s last-minute spot-kick sealed the points for Antoine Kombouaré’s men.
In spite of defeat Bielsa declared himself happy with the performance of his youngsters: “If we analyse the individual performances then there are players that put in some important displays and are very valid alternatives to those that play more often,” said the Argentine.
Even so, he is now looking for an improvement in the league with the objective of qualifying for the Europa League knockout stages now assured. He said: “Our league form has not been satisfactory and we are 10 points short of where we should be.”
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