Napoli and Athletic Bilbao are playing live on the UEFA Champions League schedule and the game is live on FOX and streaming online from Fox Sports Go and WatchESPN and the TV coverage is from Fox Sports 2 and starts up at 2:45 pm ET from Stadio San Paolo in Naples, Italy as the Serie A team and La Liga team face off in the playoff round to see who will make it into group play.
Both teams are fairly healthy coming into the game and they each are pretty big clubs and that makes this a fairly anticipated matchup despite that fact that it's the playoff for the Champs League. Arsenal is also playing on Tuesday as they try and move on and this will be a test for both Napoli and Athletic Bilbao for the matchup, as both teams want to advance into the UCL tournament.
Napoli plays well at home and that could make this game tough for Athletic and both teams obviously want to advance and that should ratchet up the play for this game. The home stadium is one of the toughest in Europe to play in and the team has lost only two of their home matches in Serie A play over the last 29 and they hope that style extends into this tournament as well. Athletic forward Aritz Aduriz may not see action while dealing with a groin injury, but he was not ruled out for the match and may play at some point.
Juventus took things in the league last year, but even they were susceptible to the home stadium of Napoli and took a 2-0 game there and now the team is looking to get it done again. These two teams are battling to get into the group stages of the tournament and it comes as Real Madrid are the defending champions after winning last season. Athletic has not been good on the road and they won only seven of those 19 matches last season in La Liga and they also have lost their best player in a transfer with Manchester United and that will only make things tougher.
Beating Napoli will be tough and it comes after the team won against PAOK and Barcelona while losing to Paris Saint-Germain coming in. This will not be an easy match for either side and the first leg has the teams looking to start off well and Napoli comes in after being third in Serie A, while Athletic ended up in fourth in La Liga and that was behind the big teams in Atletico, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Those teams will once again be in the mix at the top and this is the first time since back in 1999 that Athletic is back into the Champions League mix.
Check here for the Napoli and Athletic Bilbao live coverage of the Champions League.