One week to take off

Javier Sainz
Bilbao
Journalist

The first serious test for the staff of the Athletic comes next week. Three games await the rojiblancos in one go. In ten days, if schedules stay as planned The league
, those of Gaizka
Garitano face against Eibar, Cadiz and Alaves. It is an opportunity to take off and forget the reverse against the Pomegranate, but they are three games not without complications.

The beginning of the season has been atypical for him Athletic. He played the first match against him Pomegranate and then he had a week off. I should have played against him Barcelona, but the match was postponed after having played the Champions the Catalan team in August.

For this circumstance, Gaizka
Garitano has had more time to prepare for an important week and that has to mean the takeoff of the Athletic in this season.

The rojiblanco team will face between this Friday and next Sunday at Eibar, Cadiz and Alaves, three games in which the rojiblanca squad will pass an important exam. They are very close encounters that will force Gaizka
Garitano to make rotations and squeeze their players to leave behind the setback that was the defeat in the first day against him Pomegranate. They are an opportunity to correct the poor impression of the league premiere, but they are not easy games for a rojiblanco team that on more than one occasion these opponents have choked.

The first rival of this series of matches for him Athletic will be the Eibar in Ipurua. It is an always difficult meeting between two teams that know each other perfectly. In the six seasons that the gunsmith club has played in First the matches against him Athletic they have been resolved with tight markers and a lot of equality on the field. Even so, the statistics favor a rojiblanco team that has achieved victory three times during their visit to the Eibar, while he has lost a game and has added two draws, precisely the last two visits of the lions to Ipurua, the last one does very little, in June and two goals away. It was a match in which the Athletic was soon ahead of penalty, but the Eibar went back. Villalibre with a goal in the final stretch he saved a point for the rojiblancos.

Premiere in San Mamés

The second appointment of the week for the team of Gaizka
Garitano will be the Cadiz. It still does not have a scheduled time, but it will almost certainly be played next Thursday. It will be the first game of the season for the rojiblanco team in Saint
Mamés against a newly promoted who already knows what it's like to win away from home this season. He did it yesterday by winning 0-2 at Huesca and add your first three points in the League.

The people of Cadiz have returned this summer to First after fifteen years. In his last game in Saint
Mamés lost 1-0 with a penalty goal from Tiko in the last bars of the meeting. The statistics of the Athletic with the Cadiz at home they are spectacular. Of thirteen games played, he has added eleven wins. Never lost in League, although it was surpassed by the yellow team on one occasion in Cup.

The fireworks of this next week will culminate with a second derby, the one that awaits the Athletic in Mendizorrotza against him Alaves. Another very complicated game in a field that is increasingly difficult for the rojiblanco team. Since the babazorro ensemble returned to First, he Athletic he has not achieved victory in his fiefdom. Three defeats and a draw is the baggage of the lions' visits to Gasteiz in the last four seasons.

Eibar, Cadiz and Alaves. That is the exam that awaits a Athletic that he is obliged to clear up doubts and forget about the setback suffered in the season premiere against him Pomegranate.