Athletic Club hosted Celta de Vigo at San Mamés in LaLiga EA Sports jornada 37 on Sunday at 19.00 hours, with Iñaki Williams addressing the supporters before kickoff. Williams asked the fans for "perdón a la afición" and insisted "aún se puede creer en Europa" even as he acknowledged that "la afición es libre de expresar su opinión."
The match referee was Isidro Díaz de Mera Escuderos and both clubs published confirmed starting XIs before kickoff. Athletic went with Unai Simón; Gorosabel, Yeray Álvarez, Laporte; Yuri Berchiche; Jauregizar, Ruiz de Galarreta, Iñaki Williams, Unia Gómez, Álex Berenguer; and Gorka Guruzeta. Celta named Andrei Radu; Javi Rodríguez, Yoel Lago, Marcos Alonso; Javi Rueda, Ilaix Moriba, Fer López, Sergio Carreira; Ferran Jutglà, Borja Iglesias and Williot Swedberg.
The stakes were concrete and immediate: Celta needed at least a draw to eliminate Athletic from the fight to return to Europe, and they had to add at least two points to secure the Conference League and six points to avoid depending on Getafe for a Europa League place. A win at San Mamés would hand Celta a ninth away victory of the season and could see them celebrate European qualification already this round if Getafe did not win at Elche.
Both teams also came into the fixture under disciplinary pressure. Athletic had seven players one booking away from suspension—Jauregizar, Yuri Berchiche, Galarreta, Oihan Sancet, Berenguer, Paredes and Guruzeta—while Celta had four players on the cusp: Aspas, Jutglá, Mingueza and Yoel Lago. That arithmetic made every tackle and every card significant for the final run-in.
Injuries and returns shaped the selection. Yuri Berchiche returned to Athletic's lineup after not travelling to Catalonia, while the club remained without Nico Williams and Oihan Sancet because of muscle injuries. Daniel Vivian did not start after being substituted at halftime against Espanyol because of a severe ankle sprain. Celta coach Claudio Giráldez recovered Matías Vecino and Ilaix Moriba for the match; Vecino had missed the previous four matches with a right adductor injury and Ilaix had sat out the trip to Levante with muscle discomfort. Giráldez named 26 available players and had to make three cuts for the squad.
Giráldez set a clear tone in his pre-match comments: "Planteo los partidos para ganarlos, no sé hacerlo de otra manera," and he framed the final stretch with the blunt objective: "hacer 6 puntos y para eso hay que ganar en San Mamés." That insistence made clear Celta were not treating Bilbao as a point to be taken but as a prize to be won.
For Athletic the game carried other meanings. It was Ernesto Valverde's last home game of the season at San Mamés; the club has suffered 18 league losses this campaign, and the mood in the stadium was part performance review, part farewell. The squad list and the sidelines reflected those contradictions—players missing through injury, others one yellow card from suspension, and a coach whose final home fixture would be watched closely.
All of that left a tight, combustible match in prospect. The athletic club vs celta meeting combined immediate qualification arithmetic with accumulated season stress: suspensions that could handcuff either manager next week, returning players trying to shake off recent absences, and a Celta side explicitly aiming to take six points from its last two games. For supporters and squads alike the line between jubilation and disappointment was measured in a single result.
Williams closed the pre-match exchanges by appealing to the crowd while refusing to disguise the stakes—he asked for forgiveness, insisted belief was still possible and reminded everyone that "la afición es libre de expresar su opinión." If Athletic are to keep alive any hope of Europe, that belief must translate into performance; if Celta are to celebrate, they must take San Mamés and leave Bilbao with the points that make their end-of-season mathematics simpler.
