Paris Saint-Germain 4-2 Athletic Bilbao: French collect required win but Antoine Kombouare's side still crash out of the Europa League

A late own goal from Inigo Perez and a penalty from Guillaume Hoarau were enough to secure a 4-2 victory for Paris Saint-Germain against Athletic Bilbao in Group F action at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday evening, but its efforts were not enough to progress to the knockout stages of the Europa League.

To progress to the round of 32, PSG needed a positive result against the Spanish and for Salzburg to drop points against Slovan Bratislava. With the Spanish side fielding a weakened team, the home side's goal seemed obtainable.  Sloppy set-piece defending at the beginning of the match worsened its chances.

From a David Lopez right-sided corner in the third minute of play, an unmarked Aurtenetxe rose to brilliantly header 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 it equalized. A Nene free-kick was flicked on and found a completely open Javier Pastore who simply had to slide the ball past Raul Fernandez to level the match.

From a set-piece, les Parisiens made their dominance count. A swinging cross was put into the 18-yard box where Mathieu Bodmer was able to connect from the near post with a stunning header which found the top corner of the far side to put the home side ahead before halftime.

In the second half, PSG continued to control the flow of play, but through some individual brilliance, the away side managed to equalize. Picking up the ball from around 35 yards, Lopez found space and unleashed a cracker of a strike which blew past Raul and once again leveled the scoreline.

Lopez's goal seemed to deflate PSG and a missed penalty from Nene would have added addition misery onto the hosts. However, less than a minute after Nene's miss, PSG equalized. Mevlut Erding found space on the right and crossed into the box. A diving Perez connected with the ball and pushed it into his own net.

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