Athletic v Sevilla background

Athletic Club will try to even things up at 64 wins each when they come up against domestic rivals Sevilla FC for the first time in Europe in the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals.

Previous meetings
• The sides are meeting for the first time in UEFA competition, but know each other well from Spanish football.

• Sevilla are 64-63 ahead of Athletic (with 31 games drawn) in the teams' 158 competitive encounters in Spanish football. Sevilla have had marginally the better of their 143 Liga tussles (W59 D29 L55), while Athletic have been on top in their 15 cup ties (W8 D2 L5).

• Kevin Gameiro scored both goals when Sevilla beat Athletic 2-0 at home in the Liga on 9 January – their sole previous meeting this season. The rematch at San Mamés is scheduled for 15 May, the sides' last match of the campaign.

• Athletic's record in five UEFA games against other Spanish clubs is W2 D1 L2 (W2 D0 L0 at home – W0 D1 L1 elsewhere in Spain). Those results include a 3-0 loss to Club Atlético de Madrid in the 2011/12 UEFA Europa League final in Bucharest.

• Sevilla's 16 UEFA fixtures against Spanish rivals have ended W6 D3 L7 (W3 D2 L1 at home – W2 D0 L4 away). Those results include four UEFA finals played at neutral venues (W1 D1 L2).

Form guide
• Athletic are unbeaten in seven European home matches this term (W5 D2).

• Sevilla have yet to win away in Europe this season (D1 L4), and have not won a 2015/16 Liga away game either. By contrast, they are on a competition-record run of 11 straight UEFA Europa League home victories.

• Athletic are two-time UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League final losers: Juventus beat them on away goals after a 2-2 aggregate draw in 1977, and they also went down 3-0 to Atlético Madrid in the 2012 decider. This is their first quarter-final appearance since that campaign.

• Sevilla won the UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League for a record fourth time last term. No team have won three consecutive editions of a UEFA competition since FC Bayern München's third straight European Champion Clubs' Cup triumph in 1975/76. Sevilla are the first club to contest the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals for three seasons running.

Links and trivia
• The journey from Bilbao to Seville is around 700km.

• Athletic's Raúl García played alongside Sevilla's José Antonio Reyes (2007–11) and Éver Banega (2008–09) during his time at Atlético Madrid (2007–15).

• Sevilla forward Fernando Llorente came through the ranks at Athletic, playing for the senior side from 2005–13, scoring 85 goals in 262 Liga outings.

• Athletic's Aritz Aduriz is the leading marksman in this season's UEFA Europa League with eight goals; Borussia Dortmund's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is his nearest rival with seven goals.

• Aduriz could become the oldest top scorer in a single season in the history of the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League; he will be 35 years and 97 days old on the day of the final. Alan Shearer – the hottest gun in the 2004/05 edition with Newcastle United FC – holds the record: he was 33 years and 278 days old, in comparison.

• Athletic's Iago Herrerín is one of only four players involved in the quarter-finals who have played all 900 minutes of their sides' campaigns along with Villarreal CF's Víctor Ruiz, AC Sparta Praha's Costa and Liverpool FC goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.

• A summer recruit from beaten UEFA Europa League finalists FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Sevilla's Yevhen Konoplyanka can make his 50th UEFA club competition appearance in this game.

• Sevilla's Daniel Carriço has made more UEFA Europa League outings (group stage to final) than any other player, 51 in total.

• Athletic are the most prolific scorers left in the competition, 20 goals in ten matches from the group stage onwards giving them an average of two goals a game.

• The round of 16 second leg was Sevilla's 150th UEFA club competition fixture (W80 D30 L40).

• Of the eight teams that transferred to this competition at the end of the UEFA Champions League group stage, just FC Shakhtar Donetsk and Sevilla remain in contention.

• Of the quarter-finalists, Liverpool (1973, 1976 and 2001), Sevilla (2006, 2007, 2014, 2015) and Shakhtar (2009) have won this competition before, while Athletic (1977 and 2012), SC Braga (2011) and Dortmund (1993 and 2002) have all lost in UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League finals.

• Athletic are one of two clubs to have made it all the way from the third qualifying round to the round of 16 this term, along with Dortmund.

The coaches
• Ernesto Valverde took charge of Athletic for a second time in June 2013. As a player, he enjoyed the most stable period of his career in Bilbao and promptly returned to the club after retiring, including as head coach from 2003 to 2005. Subsequently, the 52-year-old landed three Greek titles with Olympiacos FC and coached Villarreal and Valencia.

• Unai Emery, 44, oversaw Sevilla's successes in the last two editions of the UEFA Europa League, having assumed control in January 2013. The one-time midfielder made his name in a four-year stay at the Valencia helm and briefly coached Spartak Moskva in 2012.