Bilbao (Spain), Sep 18 (IANS): Athletic Club Bilbao celebrated its return to the Champions league football for the first time in 16 years with a hard-fought barren draw at home to Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk.
The result Wednesday night was a fair reflection of the play in which the home side looked to carry the weight of the play, but struggled to create chances against a team with far more experience in the competition, reports Xinhua.
The only change Athletic Club made following last weekend's 0-2 defeat away to Barcelona was Ibai Gomez coming into the side for Markel Susaeta.
Shakhtar meanwhile presented an eclectic mix of Ukrainian and Brazilian players with the Croatian Darijo Srna also included and as could perhaps have been expected with such a mix of players proved themselves to be well-disciplined in defense and midfield pacey in attack, with Douglas Costa, Alex Teixeira, Marcos Azevedo and Taison all looking to provide speed and width every time Shakhtar won the ball.
Cheered on by an almost sell out crowd in the new San Mames Stadium on their return to the group phase of the Champions League for the first time in 16 years, Athletic looked to control the ball with right back Oscar de Marcos pushing forward at every opportunity, with Ibai looking to get involved down the other flank.
Marcos had Athletic's best chance in the first half with a free kick that hit the side netting. But home goalkeeper, Gorka Iraizoz was the busier of the two keepers, having to get down to his right to save a diagonal effort from Srna, while always being alert to come off his line to cut out any attempted through ball. Although Iraizoz had to watch helpless as Azevedo whipped the ball across the face of his goal in the last minute of the first half.
The start of the second half saw little change to the pattern with Shakhtar again looking dangerous on the break, although some poor pass selection saw them fail to make the most of their chances as Mikel Rico, especially worked hard to shut down the spaces in the Athletic midfield.
Teixeira saw a shot blocked by Aymeric Laporte on the hour as Shakhtar' s pace forced another error in the home defense and home coach Ernesto Valverde reacted by replacing Benat Etxebarria with winger Markel Susaeta.
Susaeta was soon in action with a curling cross which was well saved by Andriy Pyatov in the Shakhtar goal and Valverde wasted little time in making his last two changes, handing a debut to Ager Aketxe and bringing striker Guillermo into the action, but although Athletic dominated the last 10 minutes, they never forced Pyatov into a difficult save.