Inside Athletic

Athletic Club is edging ever closer to the start of preseason training which will kick off on 3 July. Cuco Ziganda and company will be busy preparing for the first leg of their Europa League qualifier which will take place on 27 July. That gives the Lions almost four week to get ready for their campaign to start and friendly matches will be important. Now, fans finally know a few of those upcoming games.

On Saturday morning rumors broke that Athletic would be playing against Servette FC and Marseille. Not long afterwards, Servette FC announced on their official Twitter page that they would in fact be playing against the Basques on 12 July. That will give Athletic a little less than 10 days of training and will likely serve as their first friendly of the summer.

Servette FC plays in the Swiss Challenge League, which serves as the second division. They are a very interesting club that faced bankruptcy back in 2005 but were kept alive. In the last five years they have qualified for the Europa League and been relegated from the top flight. An international friendly against Athletic will serve to help the Swiss side prepare to fight for promotion in the upcoming campaign.

The friendly against Marseille has yet to be announced, but it looks close to being finalized. The date is expected to be on 21 July which is just one week before Athletic’s Europa League season begins. The location of the game, along with other information, has not been revealed. In addition, Athletic will also play a friendly in Ireland against Liverpool on 5 August which has been set for a few weeks and ticket information can be found online.