Sa Pinto unsure of semi-final favouritism

Sporting Lisbon coach Ricardo Sa Pinto said his side’s Europa League semi-final second leg with Athletic Bilbao is an even-money bet.

Sporting bring a 2-1 first-leg lead with them to Bilbao thanks to goals from Emiliano Insua and Diego Capel in the first leg in Portugal, but Bilbao have an away goal in hand after Jon Aurtenetxe’s 54th minute opener.

Both sides beat more glamorous opponents on their way to the final-four of the European second-tier tournament, but Sa Pinto said that anything could happen over the course of 90 minutes.

“I’ve seen in the newspapers that Athletic Bilbao putting 7500 tickets for sale for their fans in the final. This means they are optimistic and I think that this is fine, it’s legitimate. We are thinking about the 90 minutes on Thursday,” Sa Pinto said.

“I respect football and this sport has given me the humility to understand that anything can happen.

“We can say that one team is better or worse than the other but for example Athletic beat Manchester United and United were favourites. We beat Manchester City and they were favourites.

“They are the most expensive team ever. But I can’t say whether we are or we aren’t the favourites.”

Sa Pinto said his side will go about winning the tie by nullifying Bilbao’s explosive playmakers.

“How do I think to approach this match? We’ll try to stop them. We have to stop them. That’s the truth. They have dangerous players. Javi Martinez is back, they have Amorebieta and Llorente, he’s always there scoring goals,” he said.

“So we have to be careful with their strategy. They have good tactics, but we are prepared stop them and I hope they aren’t as lucky as they were in Lisbon.”

Sporting winger Jeffren Suarez said, however, he and his team-mates must be aiming to win the second leg, rather than trying to defend their 2-1 advantage.

“The truth is that they (Bilbao) have a very good squad. They have dangerous players. It depends on how they will play but (Fernando) Llorente is always a dangerous player and we have to be careful. We didn’t come to Bilbao to just sit on our first leg result, we came here to win,” Suarez said.