{"id":315497,"date":"2025-09-14T18:48:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/315497\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T18:48:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:48:27","slug":"athletics-momentum-halted-just-before-arsenal-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/315497\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletic\u2019s momentum halted just before Arsenal showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Athletic Club\u2019s preparations for their Champions League opener against Arsenal suffered a setback as they were beaten 1-0 at San Mam\u00e9s by Alav\u00e9s, ending what had been their best ever start to a league campaign.<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"642\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/45265abd10e6b33ac110d43b7f19b837.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo by Ion Alcoba Beitia\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Almost 50,000 turned out in Bilbao expecting a statement of intent, but instead witnessed a laboured display from the home side and a landmark victory for their Basque rivals, who had not won at the Cathedral for two decades.<\/p>\n<p>The decisive moment came shortly before the hour when a cross from former Arsenal loanee, Denis Su\u00e1rez, introduced at half-time along with Toni Mart\u00ednez and Lucas Boy\u00e9, took a wicked deflection off \u00c1lex Berenguer and deceived Unai Sim\u00f3n.<\/p>\n<p>It was the sort of freak goal that mirrored the afternoon as a whole: Athletic\u2019s industry rarely translated into anything tangible, while Alav\u00e9s, well-organised under Eduardo Coudet, grew in belief as the contest wore on.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"665\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/20793fc7d849a9e7e4ab84a6148d06e5.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo by Ion Alcoba Beitia\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The result slightly soured the post-match unveiling of Aymeric Laporte, returning to Bilbao, and press reports from the region claim it has sharpened the focus ahead of Tuesday\u2019s Champions League tie with Arsenal.<\/p>\n<p>Athletic looked blunt in possession and over-reliant on their wide players for penetration, with full-back Areso and Robert Navarro offering moments of promise but little end product.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/a319be32831e03d90c399cd0985f347d.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo by Ion Alcoba Beitia\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>For Mikel Arteta, watching from afar, the defeat will have offered encouragement. Athletic showed an inability to break down a compact defence, a weakness Arsenal will seek to exploit.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal travel to Bilbao on a high after their <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycannon.com\/2025\/09\/martin-odegaard-injury-forest\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:victory over Nottingham Forest;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">victory over Nottingham Forest<\/a>, while Athletic approach their European return having been unsettled in front of their own supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal have been here before, facing opponents wounded in the build-up, and will know that the Champions League has a habit of making a mockery of domestic results.<\/p>\n<p>For Athletic, the real test will be how quickly they can shake off a rare home disappointment and adapt to the step up in level that awaits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Athletic Club\u2019s preparations for their Champions League opener against Arsenal suffered a setback as they were beaten 1-0&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2391],"tags":[47189,145,47188,537,47194,5,34928,47190,47192,4,3226,47193,47191],"class_list":{"0":"post-315497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletics","8":"tag-alaves","9":"tag-arsenal","10":"tag-athletic-club","11":"tag-athletics","12":"tag-aymeric-laporte","13":"tag-baseball","14":"tag-champions-league","15":"tag-denis-suarez","16":"tag-lucas-boye","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-mlb-athletics","19":"tag-nottingham-forest","20":"tag-robert-navarro"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115204148971372152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}