The Spanish international scored a climatic goal against Sporting Lisbon to book http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Athletic-Club-c38535’s place in the Europa League final against Atletico Madrid.
UEFA Europa League will see two Spanish fallen giants battle for glory in the second tier club competition. While Atletico Madrid comfortably eased past http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Valencia-c40863 in their semi-final meetings, Athletic Club were made to work hard by an inspired Sporting Lisbon.
Los Leones went into the return leg at San Mames trailing their Portuguese rivals by two goals to one, and need to overturn the deficit to claim a final place, a feat they managed to pull through with two minutes of normal time remaining.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ricky-van-Wolfswinkel-c31131 brought the match to parity, especially on away goals. However, Ibai Gomez levelled the match on aggregate in the first period’s added time.
The second half did yield plenty of scoring chances, but both clubs failed to make the most of what came their way. It was Sporting’s loss in the end as http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Fernando-Llorente-c13671 scored from close range with the clock ticking 88 minutes.
Marcelo Bielsa was pleased with the performance of Athletic players and especially talisman Llorente, who led from the front.
"Llorente played like I had never seen since I have been at this club," the former Argentine head coach reflected after the game. "Moreover, this was our smoothest match, as far as collective play goes.”
"I was very happy for my players. I congratulated them and told them they absolutely deserved this.”
Reflecting on the character shown by his players, Bielsa reckoned that he is happy that the players came through in the pressure situation and added that he can now sleep with ease.
"These kind of matches create in the players a huge sense of responsibility because they want to make the fans happy and are afraid to disappoint them. So we are all relieved to go through."
Meeting with Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Europa League final is the second knockout competition http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Vicente-c36001 Calderon for Copa
del Rey glory.
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