Celta and Athletic Club meet today at Balaídos with the same problem hanging over both teams: neither has won yet. Celta have one loss already, Athletic Club have two, and the first real pressure point of the season is no longer about style or patience but about getting a result before the early table starts to harden.
That is why CELTA vs Athletic is drawing attention now. Celta are also missing Marcos Alonso, who was sent off against Osasuna and cannot play today, while Borja Iglesias is out with injury. Claudio Giráldez still has several decisions to settle, and the biggest one is in defense: whether he leans on Javi Galán, keeps faith with Sergio Carreira after he was a substitute against Osasuna, or turns to another solution after Javi Rueda’s error in that game. Abdulaye Faye has not yet played in an official match, so he is not a simple answer to a problem that is already live.
There is a familiar pattern around Celta at home. Their home production last season was too poor despite a strong overall result, and the start of this campaign at home has not improved after the defeat to Osasuna on the past Thursday. That makes this match more than a routine fixture: it is a test of whether the team can stop a bad opening from becoming a habit. Giráldez now has to decide not only who fills Alonso’s place, but how much risk he wants to carry from the start when the margin for another slip is already thin.
Athletic Club arrive with their own questions, and they are not small ones. They are described as unusually searching for identity, yet they still travel with Unai Simón, Aymeric Laporte and the two Williams brothers available, which gives them a spine that can steady almost any match. Dani Vivian and Beñal Prados are confirmed absences, but the core that remains is strong enough to make Celta’s selection puzzle look even sharper. If Athletic Club can turn that available quality into the kind of control they have been missing, the shape of the game changes quickly. If they cannot, the wait for a first league win will continue for both sides, and the scrutiny on Giráldez’s choices will only grow after kickoff.
