Athletic have already faced four teams from LaLiga’s top seven

Athletic’s LaLiga schedule has already brought the club up against several leading sides. Looking only at completed matches, four of their opponents were among the top seven in the standings: Barça, Atlético, Sevilla and Alavés.

The demanding run has also brought mixed results. Barça, who had won their first eight matches, beat Athletic 2-0. On the opening matchday of the league, Sevilla had won 3-1 in Bilbao. Alavés, meanwhile, took a point from a 0-0 draw just before the international break.

Those fixtures show the difficulty of Athletic’s early schedule: the club have already faced four teams in the upper part of the table, including the top two. The completed-match record gives a measure of the quality of the opposition Athletic have encountered so far, without deciding what comes next in the season.