page_title: Athletic Bilbao in European football
section_title: 2014–15 season
hierarchical_section_title: Athletic Bilbao in European football / History / Late 2010s: Champions League and top scorer / 2014–15 season
caption_attribution_description: Euskara: Euskal Selekzioa - Kataluniaren arteko partiduaren amaieran. 2014ko abenduaren 28. Bilbao, Euskal Herria. English: Before Basque National Football Team - Catalan National Football Team match. 28th December 2014. Bilbao, Basque Country.
context_page_description: Athletic Bilbao, a professional football club based in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain, has competed in international tournaments as representatives of La Liga since 1956. The club's first entry into an official competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations was the European Cup in 1956–57 as national champions; they reached the quarter-finals.
  Athletic have yet to win a continental trophy in 32 attempts, up to and including the 2017–18 campaign. They finished runners-up in the two-legged 1977 UEFA Cup Final, losing to Juventus on the away goals rule, and in the 2012 UEFA Europa League Final which finished 3–0 to compatriots Atlético Madrid. The club have twice reached the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, in 1998–99 and 2014–15, but did not qualify for the next phase on either occasion.
  The striker Aritz Aduriz contributed 34 European goals for the club over a six-year spell from 2012 to 2018, winning the Europa League's top scorer award twice. The player with the most appearances, winger Markel Susaeta, was also heavily involved in that period as well as during the 2011–12 Europa League.
context_section_description: After one season in a half-built stadium and with no European football, Athletic – now coached by Valverde for a second time  – finished in 4th place in the 2013–14 La Liga, allowing rare access to the Champions League qualification process. In the first match at the new San Mamés in its completed state, they defeated Napoli to reach the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League group stage. However they could only finish third behind Shakhtar Donetsk and Porto after losing to BATE (who were defeated heavily by the other teams), meaning they dropped into the Europa League, the only occasion in which the club has been involved in two European competitions in one season. Athletic were then knocked out of the lesser tournament at the Round of 32 by Torino, their first home loss to an Italian club after eight matches undefeated.
caption: The first match at the completed new San Mamés Stadium was a win over Napoli in the Champions League in 2014
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