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“Evenings like this reinforce Athletic’s philosophy”

“Evenings like this reinforce Athletic’s philosophy”

Garitano, proud of the great job done by his team, aims for the Copa: “We’ve gone for it from the beginning”

“It’s in evenings like this that our philosophy is reinforced. It’s becoming more and more difficult to compete with these teams, but we are proud of ourselves, we resisted and we won.” Extremely satisfied and “proud”, this is how Gaizka Garitano showed himself in the press conference held after Athletic Club secured their place in the Copa semi-finals, beating FC Barcelona.

The red-and-white manager has underlined the faith his side had in winning: “The job done by the team has been enormous. It’s true there’s been a time during the second half where they dominated the game because they have excellent footballers. But we are not a team that give up easily and we played until the end. We get over things again and again, always demonstrating that we aren’t easy to defeat. In the last three games with Barça here, we haven’t conceded a single goal and that’s because we do it well defensively.”

Regarding tomorrow’s draw, Garitano said he prefers to savour the victory over FC Barcelona and see what happens tomorrow (1.00 pm) when the balls with the names of their possible opponents, Real Sociedad, Granada and Mirandés, are pulled out: “Favourites? Well, we’ve gone for the Cup from the beginning, so we’re savouring this victory now, you don’t get to win Barça every day. Whoever we are matched against, I’m sure the game will be difficult.”