Paris Saint-Germain 4-2 Athletic Bilbao: French side win it late but crash out of the Europa League

Paris Saint-Germain defeated Athletic Bilbao 4-2 on Wednesday evening but failed to progress to the knockout stages of the Europa League.

A late own goal from Inigo Perez and a penalty from Guillaume Hoarau secured the necessary victory in the final minutes to give the hosts a chance of qualification.

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However, Salzburg failed to drop points against Slovan Bratislava leaving the French side out of the competition and boss Antoine Koumbouare under further pressure.

With Bilbao fielding a weakened team, the home side's goal seemed obtainable, but sloppy set-piece defending at the beginning of the match worsened their chances.

From a David Lopez corner in the third minute of play, an unmarked Jon Aurtenetxe rose to brilliantly head past Nicolas Douchez, who still managed to get a touch, but not enough to keep the ball out of his goal.

The home side recovered and it was due to further incompetent defending from set pieces that they equalised. A Nene delivery was flicked on and found a completely free Javier Pastore who simply had to slide the ball past Raul Fernandez to level the match.

Antoine Kombouare's men controlled the flow of play after their goal with Pastore pulling strings in the midfield. They nearly earned an advantage in the scoreline when the masterful Argentine ghosted past two defenders and tested Fernandez with a hard strike. The rebound found an unmarked Jean-Christophe Bahebeck, who missed an open net with an awful effort.

It was from a set piece that the hosts finally made their dominance count. A swinging cross into the 18-yard box found Mathieu Bodmer, who was able to connect from the near post with a stunning header which found the top corner to put the home side ahead before half-time.

In the second half, PSG continued to control the flow of play, but through some individual brilliance, the away side managed to equalise.

Picking up the ball from around 35 yards, Lopez found space and unleashed a cracker of a strike which flew past Fernandez and once again levelled the scoreline.

Bahebeck continued what was an overall terrible display on the night when a defensive error isolated Iraola, whose effort just scraped by the post.