Cayon vs Athletic Bilbao Prediction: Another slow start in Copa del Rey for visitors?

Club Deportivo Cayon have been handed a bumper fixture in the second round of the Copa del Rey, as they play host to La Liga side Athletic Bilbao (Athletic Club) on Thursday night (20:00).

Cayon currently play in Segunda Federacion, the fourth tier of the Spanish football league system, and are based in Cantabria in northern Spain. The club has never played in the top three tiers, and this week's tie will be the first time they have ever played Athletic Club.

Below we have previewed the clash and picked out a couple of the best bets for the fixture.

Team News

It's difficult to find too much by the way of team news on Cayon, but Alberto Montiel, Jesus Villar and Alejandro Canizo will all hope to earn a start after each scored in their 3-0 success over Racing Club Villalbes on Sunday.

Canizo, in fact, is the club's highest scorer in the league with three, which probably explains their lowly position of 16th in an 18-team division.

Athletic beat Rayo Vallecano 4-0 on Saturday afternoon and are likely to make a number of changes for a game they should be comfortably winning.

Julen Agirrezabala began their first round win over UE Rubi in nets and will expect to keep goal again on Thursday, while Iker Muniain, Raul Garcia, Alex Berenguer and Adu Ares should all expect starts.

Match Odds

Unsurprisingly, Cayon are huge underdogs to win on Thursday at 20/1, with Athletic as short as 1/12 to take the victory inside 90 minutes. A draw - which would take it to extra-time - is available at 13/2.

The visitors conceded to sixth-tier side UE Rubi in the last round and it's 2/1 for both teams to score again this time.

Athletic -1 half-time handicap @ 7/4

The La Liga side struggled to break UE Rubi down in the previous round, and it took until the 50th minute for them to find a breakthrough.

Perhaps that was just a one-off, but it can be difficult for back-up players to gel and play as cohesively as the usual starters when they've barely played as a unit all season.

Cayon should, in theory, pose a tougher test than UE Rubi as a side a couple of tiers above. The lower-league team will be looking to make the game as tight as possible, especially in the early stages, so that should restrict Athletic's chances of racking up a score early on.

They've only gone two-up at half-time twice in La Liga, for what it's worth.

Draw/Athletic half-time/full-time @ 3/1

If you're feeling even bolder, why not back Cayon to repeat the feats of UE Rubi and go in at the break level?

As mentioned previously, it's likely to be a much-changed Athletic, and that disruption could see another slow start on Thursday.

Of course, it would be a major shock if Athletic weren't to go on and win it inside 90 minutes, so we're still expecting a victory for the La Liga side here.

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