Eyes on "The Tiger" in Europe

Both Athletic Bilbao and Atlético Madrid face potentially decisive matches in the Europa League on Thursday: the former leads its group by three points having racked up two wins and a tie - no mean feat when Ligue 1 leader and the new financial powerhouse in France, Paris Saint Germain, is one of your opponents.

Athletic beat PSG quite comfortably in Bilbao and travels to Paris in the final match of the group phase in December. By that stage, Athletic will hope to have tied up qualification for the knockout rounds, something it can mathematically achieve if it returns from Salzburg (7pm, Canal +) with three points and Slovan Bratislava lends The Lions a hand by beating PSG in the French capital.

"We will approach the game as we have all the others," said Athletic president Josu Urrutia. "The intention is to win, without making too many conjectures. At this level, if you can't give as good as you get, against any opponent it becomes difficult. Salzburg gave us a lot of trouble in San Mamés [in a 2-2 tie] but we also showed we can make life difficult for opponents as well. "

Atlético can only dream of finding itself in the position of the club from which it was born. Gregorio Manzano's side is obliged to win against Udinese in the Calderón (9.05pm, Cuatro) to have any hope of topping its group, which the Italian side leads by three points from the Spaniards.

Should Francesco Guidolin's side claim victory, Atlético will still have qualification in its own hands, but will be obliged to beat both Rennes, which held it to a 1-1 tie in France, and Celtic, the only side the rojiblancos have got the better of in Europe this season. And Udinese is no pushover: second in Serie A after nine games, one point behind the leader, Juventus and with only three goals conceded, the bianconeri does not seem to be suffering too much from losing star forward Alexis Sánchez to Barcelona.

Atlético, meanwhile, has only scored five in its last eight games and finally broke a winless streak stretching back to September 24 against Zaragoza at the weekend. Manzano will have noted the Calderón crowd chanting the name of Luis Aragonés even in victory and the veteran coach knows that he must now engineer a positive result in Europe to quell growing unrest.

To Atlético's advantage, Udinese will be without two key players for the match: top scorer Antonio di Natale and midfielder Giampiero Pinzi. Manzano will probably field the same side that beat Zaragoza, when Adrián López scored twice, and hope that Radamel Falcao, "The Tiger," rediscovers his Europa League scoring touch: last season for Porto he netted 17 in 14 games, eclipsing Jürgen Klinsmann's record.