Valverde: “It's a shame not to reach the final"

Ernesto Valverde said Athletic's Copa semi-final defeat to Real Sociedad was a shame, putting the loss down to an inability to "create enough opportunities" to score goals.

The Lions are out of the Copa after losing 2-0 on aggregate to la Real, with Wednesday's 1-0 loss following a 0-1 result in Bilbao.

"It's a shame not to reach the final," Valverde said after the second leg.

"When you have this opportunity and you don't succeed, you feel frustrated, and that frustration is proportional to how excited you were beforehand. We lacked more chances to score and we didn't create enough opportunities.

"We have to admit that la Real played better than us in the tie. We weren't able to hurt them as much as we wanted to because we didn't play well enough in attack."

"In derbies, we know that every match is different and that any little detail can make the difference. They came into the match in better form at this point of the season and were the better side. Congratulations to them and good luck in the final.

"Regardless, we must keep going in LaLiga and try our best to finish as high up the table as possible."

Mikel Oyarzabal delivered the killer blow with a dubious penalty that was given after a VAR check. It was awarded for an Iñigo Ruiz de Galarreta action which Valverde says "can happen in any corner".

He continued: "I didn't know what was going on. I thought it might be a sending-off, I didn't think it would be something like that. It wasn't anything outrageous. No one on the pitch knew what was happening, and then a penalty was awarded out of nowhere."