Oscar de Marcos has warned Napoli that Athletic Bilbao won’t sit back on the result from the first leg of their Champions League Play-off round.
The two sides shared a 1-1 result at the San Paolo last midweek, handing the Basques the away goal advantage heading into this week’s second leg tie at San Mames.
Even so, one of the team’s versatile starters has warned that Athletic will not be sitting back come Wednesday night.
“The result from the first leg does not count,” De Marcos has warned in Il Mattino today.
Oscar de Marcos has warned Napoli that Athletic Bilbao won’t sit back on the result from the first leg of their Champions League Play-off round.
The two sides shared a 1-1 result at the San Paolo last midweek, handing the Basques the away goal advantage heading into this week’s second leg tie at San Mames.
Even so, one of the team’s versatile starters has warned that Athletic will not be sitting back come Wednesday night.
“The result from the first leg does not count,” De Marcos has warned in Il Mattino today.
“Valverde wants the team to be always proactive, especially in front of our own fans.
“We are a team that relies heavily on the collective, our extra man is San Mames, where there are the best fans in the world.
“Nothing has been decided, we will put everything into this 90 minutes and it will be a battle.
“At the San Paolo I noticed an atmosphere similar to that in our stadium, but the athletics track has the fans a bit further away.
“I felt a lot of passion, when we arrived at the ground for the game, there were already 30,000 people in the stands. Our fans and those of the Partenopei support their team tirelessly.”
De Marcos is generally a midfielder, but assisted Iker Muniain’s opener last week with a surge forward from a right-back position.
“In recent years I have become accustomed to playing in different roles – against Napoli I took advantage of the gap left by Insigne and I was able to feed Muniain in the middle.
“We had studied Napoli and we knew we could come away from the San Paolo with a good result. Now we play at San Mames.”
De Marcos faced Lorenzo Insigne and then Dries Mertens last week and asked which one gave him more trouble.
“They are two different players, the first was always trying to move into the middle and played the ball horizontally, whilst the second has caused me more problems with his sprints and runs – I suffered because I was tired.
“From Napoli I would remove Gonzalo Higuain – he is a strong and incisive player, I was surprised by his athleticism.”