New Delhi: In an exciting encounter in Bilbao, the home side came from behind twice to beat Valencia with a last-gasp winner.
Valencia travelled to San Mames on Sunday night to face in-form Athletic Bilbao hoping to keep in touch with Sevilla and Real Madrid in the race for second place.
Realistically, with Barcelona’s fantastic form, second place is the best Los Che could hope for but it would be an incredible turnaround from the disaster of last season. Coach Unai Emery opted for Fernando Morientes to partner David Villa upfront.
Meanwhile, Bilbao are unbeaten in eight matches and coach Joaquin Caparros has been waxing lyrical, saying the rest of the league are running scared from his Basque side. Fernando Llorente one again started up front, looking to continue his excellent scoring run.
But it was the visitors that made all the early running and Valencia took the lead within two minutes, thanks once again to David Villa. The prolific forward ran onto a through pass from Mata and coolly slotted past Iraizoz to give his side a dream start.
However Bilbao’s current form has given them a belief that was missing at the start of the season, and they quickly drew level. David Lopez did brilliantly to get to the by-line and float a teasing cross into the area that was met by Gabilondo who confidently nodded home.
It was end to end stuff in the first half, and Valencia responded to going behind superbly, quickly regaining the lead. Once again David Villa was involved, sliding the ball across the goal to Fernando Morientes who had the simple task of tapping home. 2-1 to the away side.
But Bilbao just don’t accept defeat at the moment, and they once again levelled things up. Just before half-time, David Lopez swung in a dangerous delivery and this time Javi Martinez headed home, right on half-time.
After the thrilling first half, the second period was always going to have less incident, and despite the best efforts of both sides a winning appeared unlikely to come.
But in the last minute, Javier Martinez was brought down by Manuel Fernandes and the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. Fernandes was sent off, collecting his second yellow for the foul, and it had to be Fernando Llorente to step up and calmly score past Renan to give Bilbao yet another fantastic victory.
No defeat in nine now for the Basque side – from bottom in October to potential European challengers – its been quite a turnaround for Caparros’ side.
Goals:
Athletic Bilbao:
Gabilondo (17’), Javi Martinez (42’), Llorente (90’)
Valencia:
Villa (2’), Morientes (30’)
Teams:
Athletic: Iraizoz, Ocio, Del Campo, Iraola, Martinez,Orbaiz, Lopez, Ustaritz, Gabilondo, Velez, Llorente
Valencia: Renan, Maduro, Marchena, Moretti, Angulo, Albelda, Fernandes, Mata, Joaquin, Villa, Morientes
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