Ernesto Valverde: ‘We are excited about the Super Cup’.

Ernesto Valverde and Óscar De Marcos took centre stage at Athletic Club's press conference ahead of their Super Cup semi-final at the King Abdullah Sports City. At 17:15 (Saudi local time), the Bilbao defender began by sharing his feelings ahead of the game. ‘I'm looking forward to being in a semi-final again, saying that whenever you're close to a title, you always have the dream of winning it,’ he said.

De Marcos: ‘In the end, the only goals I managed to get were against Barça when we were able to win. We've also lost against them too, I remember that I made my debut against Barça in a Super Cup. But we'll see how we do and how we get on’. And he reflected: ‘We'll see how we come out, especially in the first few minutes. We've played against them at their place in La Liga and lost, but we've looked at what we failed to do and we're looking forward to another final’.

On Athletic Club's form: ‘We're on a very good run of form, but it's a tough game. I don't think we start as favourites, we are in a very good situation, but it will be difficult’.

Ernesto Valverde then took to the stage following Óscar De Marcos at the press conference and began by analysing his team’s form coming into the tournament: ‘We're excited about this Super Cup, we've been waiting for this day for a long time. Our intention is to maximise our chances to be able to win tomorrow. We have a great opponent in front of us, we are not favourites, but we will give everything to get through’.

‘It's a smaller competition than some others, but for us it has meant a lot when we have won it. Titles are there to be won, to make clubs bigger. We're in the semi-finals and now we have to do everything we can to get there. We know it's difficult, but we're going to try,’ promised the coach.

Valverde: ‘We have a good feeling, we finished last year well. We've just qualified for the Last 16 of the Copa del Rey on penalties against a Segunda Federación team. We have to be ambitious and have the courage to take on anyone.

On the atmosphere in Jeddah, the Athletic Club coach explained: ‘At the moment we haven't seen too much because we have just arrived, but we know that there will be a lot of people in the stadium. I hope the people enjoy it and that we can put on a good game for them’.

FULL PRESS CONFERENCE

After the press conference, Athletic Club held its last session before the semi-final against FC Barcelona. As usual, the first fifteen minutes of training were shown live on the official RFEF channels.