Athletic Bilbao defender Eneko Boveda is confident that his side can overcome Zilina in the second leg of their Europa League playoff on Thursday.

The Spanish outfit currently trail 3-2 from the first leg in Slovakia and will be without a number of key players for the return match in Bilbao.

Boveda, however, has said that the team are "prepared" for the "very important challenge".

"There are players on whom we can't call, but the rest of us are prepared for this very important challenge," AS quotes the 26-year-old as saying.

"I'm not thinking about whether or not we are favourites, only trying to bring out our virtues. The goal is to go through to the next round. They played a game with people running from deep and it was difficult to hold the lines together. They played on that."

Boveda is a new signing at Bilbao, having made the move from Eibar this summer.