“It has been a good but irregular season”
“It has been a good but irregular season”
Athletic’s sports director, Rafa Alkorta, has highlighted the importance of the achievements: “We are in a Copa final and that is very important”
Athletic Club’s sports director, Rafa Alkorta, has appeared in the San Mamés press room to evaluate the recently concluded season. Alkorta considered the campaign as “good, but irregular. We had a very good start, but then we went through that phase with League and Copa matches in which we lost a lot of points. And after the confinement, despite the tremendous disadvantage of points that we had, we were in seventh place two rounds. This is why we were so sorry to have missed out after such a great job.”
Athletic’s sports director wanted to highlight the possibility of fighting for a title as a key point of this season: “It is true that we have had several peaks in the league, but I think we have to highlight the Copa final, where we eliminated Barça and got through very difficult qualifying rounds. I think we deserve to be in that final and having got there, I think it has been a good season, with the Cup final and fighting for Europe to the end.”
Looking ahead to next season, Alkorta has set out the club’s objectives: “To fight for that fifth, sixth and seventh place, like this year fighting with teams that are of our level and from which we have been one step behind these two years”. And has underlined the importance of Lezama: “We are always open to incorporations, but our strength comes from home. We have a great Bilbao Athletic, a great Basconia, with players with a lot of future and we keep looking forward to home, which is what feeds us. Every year it is more difficult to get players here.”
Alkorta has advanced that, besides Sancet, Vivian and Vencedor, they will make the preseason with the first team Areso, Morcillo and Zarraga, and has valued the work of the red-and-white subsidiary: “The season of all the Bilbao Athletic has been spectacular and it has been a pleasure to see them play. There are several footballers who are first team projects. It is not easy to jump from second division to first division, but we are sure that they and other team-mates will give us a lot of joy in the next years.”