A week after their comfortable victory against Arenas, Athletic Club faced a much tougher test in a pre-season friendly match in Germany against newly promoted Bundesliga club SC Paderborn.
The Basques raced into an early lead when Gaizka Larrazabal scored after only twenty seconds. However, the tables were soon to be turned and Los Leones went into the interval trailing 2-1 after goals from Zolinski and Vasiliadis.
Simón and Aduritz were introduced at half time by Garitano, but they couldn’t prevent the deficit increasing as SC Paderborn made it 3-1 through Antwi-Adjei in the 57th minute.
Another nine substitutions from Garitano with 23 minutes remaining did have a positive effect and a few minutes later Córdoba pulled one back with a fine strike. Athletic left it late, but they did eventually level the scores in the final minute through Muniain, to record another creditable result in the early stages of their pre-season campaign.
The starting line-up was as follows:
Iago Herrerín – De Marcos, Vivian, Yeray, Balenziaga – Vesga, Beñat, Larrazabal, Raúl García – Vicente, Kodro
Substitutions:
Simón (46’), Aduriz (46’), Capa (67’), Núñez (67’), Nolaskoain (67’), Yuri Berchiche (67’), San José (67’), Sancet (67’), Ibai (67’), Muniain (67’), Córdoba (67’)