Athletic Club beat UD Las Palmas 2-3 on Sunday in a match in which the Bilbao team was always ahead on the scoreboard, with a two-goal lead at half-time and one player less from the 56th minute when Mikel Jauregizar was sent off, in a great afternoon for the Williams brothers, with Nico’s first league goal and three assists from Iñaki.
The Bilbao team came out with a lot of character, not being affected by the fact that the first great chance of the match was booked, aborted in two stages by Agirrezabala, who rejected a shot from Moleiro and the subsequent loose ball that Kirian got to.
Athletic holds on with ten
UD Las Palmas, too preoccupied with Nico Williams, suffered right on the opposite flank, the right. After a throw-in, the ball reached the older brother, Iñaki, whose low cross into the area was let through by Guruzeta and Sancet controlled it in a very small space to push it into the net.
Athletic hold on with ten men – Photo: Ángel Medina G.Athletic’s feeling of superiority at the Gran Canaria was evident throughout the stadium. Valverde’s men defused their rival’s inside play, and every recovery and approach to Cillessen’s area caused murmurs in the stands.
In one of those arrivals, a goal by Sancet was disallowed for clear offside, after another pass from Iñaki Willams, which the Navarrese had finished with a cross shot.
Nico Williams began to get into the action and, together with his brother, created a video game goal: a long ball towards him was headed clear by Cillessen, and after collecting it, he did not try from distance with an empty goal, but instead had the necessary poise to combine with Iñaki, who passed the ball back to him inside the area so that he could put it against the post with a subtle first touch, a pass into the net.
Valverde’s men took a breather in the intensity of their pressure and that allowed Las Palmas to get closer to their goal. Athletic played with fire and did not get burned because Aitor Paredes cleared a cross shot from Kirian under the posts, with Agirrezabala already beaten, in the 38th minute.
The half-time break was reached with the red-and-whites comfortably ahead, with their only drawback at that moment being having both of their midfielders booked.
And precisely one of them fell in the second half, although with a direct red card, for a knockdown of Sandro as the last defender, in an action in which Yuri had not returned from an attack.
It was a fateful minute for Athletic, because Sandro himself took the free kick into the net, although Agirrezabala could have done something more with a powerful shot, but not very tight.
With just one goal difference and one more yellow player on the field, the match changed to the enormous anger of Ernesto Valverde, who just before the expulsion had Beñat Prados ready, who knows if for Jauregizing.
Athletic had to suffer, and Agirrezabala saved the tie with a header from Portuguese debutant Fábio Silva.
The red-and-whites, now without Nico Williams – who was applauded when he was substituted – had the option of strategy, and after a second action following a corner, Berenguer put a cross to the far post where Iñaki Williams cushioned the ball and left it in the six-yard box for Paredes to push into the net.
Despite the defensive lapse, Las Palmas did not give up and Álex Muñoz headed in Agirrezabala’s cross from Kirian, and once again tightened the score, but Athletic resisted the island’s final attacks to take the spoils of the island.
