Football Season Guide

The fact that Athletic Club de Bilbao only just sneaked into the Europa League based on Alaves losing the Copa del Rey final means that the 2016/17 campaign must go down as something of a disappointment for the Basque side. Having become used to qualifying for Europe with relative ease, the fact they had to sweat on one more Europe League berth being added to the league table, where they finished 7th, was troubling and a difficult summer will not have done much to generate fresh optimism ahead of the 2017/18 season. Firstly, they lost their coach Ernesto Valverde to Barcelona, a major blow which cannot be underestimated. Jose Angel Ziganda has been promoted to the top job from the B team so there should be some continuity but his lack of experience could prove telling as he coaches in the top division for the first time since the 2009/10 season when he was fired by ultimately-relegated Xerez after one win from 17 matches. The return of Yeray Alvarez's cancer and the resumption of his chemotherapy was another tough piece of news. Yet another summer setback for Athletic Club was the failure to land Mikel Merino, their main transfer target, who eventually opted to join Newcastle United. As such, they have not added any new players to the senior squad so far, once again restricted by their Basque-only policy, with the only arrivals being loan returnees. On the plus side, Athletic Club have not lost as many players as they might have feared, with no starters having departed. The highly sought-after Inaki Williams is still in Bilbao and ready to take another step forward this season while they’ve similarly kept a hold of other young talents such as Aymeric Laporte and Kepa Arrizabalaga. Raul Garcia and Aritz Aduriz are also both still at the club and, while they may now be 31 and 36 respectively, they should continue to conjure up goals as the two most advanced player’s in the team’s 4-2-3-1 formation, just as they did last year when they were the top two scorers.