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NICOSIA, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Cypriot's APOEL eliminated mighty Athletic Bilbao after a convincing 2-0 win and qualified to the last 16 stage of the Europa League.
Bilbao won the first game 3-2 in Bilbao a week ago.
After a goalless first half Pieros Sotiriou shot home a left pass from Efrain just one minute into the second half.
Giannis Giannotas was brought down inside Athletic's area and he scored APOEL's second goal from the penalty spot in the 54th minute.
Scorer Pieros Setiriou was sent off the field with a second yellow card for a mid-field foul and APOEL had to withstand continuous pressing by Athletic playing with 10 for the 25 minutes of the game plus 6 minutes extra time.
Despite their pressing for most of the game Atheltic were never close to scoring.
APOEL's star scorer will miss the next Europa League game of his team.
Athletic also played with one less for the six extra minutes of the match after Ander Iturraspe was also sent off the field with a second yellow card.
It was ironic that Atheltic's trainer Ernesto Valverde had jokingly said after the win of his team a week ago that with APOEL's efficiency they could make to the finals, as APOEL had only three final efforts and scored twice.
