Police in Bilbao have cancelled all leave ahead of Rangers’ meeting with Athletic Club as part of a major security operation. Athletic have only ever hosted Rangers once before, back in 1969. The two sides will battle it out for a place in the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday, following the first leg at Ibrox. It’s all to play for in Spain following a 0-0 scoreline in Glasgow, meaning the Light Blues have a huge opportunity to book their place in the next round. More than 5,000 Rangers are expected to make the trip to the Basque city to cheer on their side, but only around 2,600 of them have tickets to the match itself. The clash will take place at Athletic’s San Mames stadium on Thursday, with kick-off scheduled for 8pm BST. Rangers fans will be escorted to the ground three hours before the match gets underway, and they will be required to remain inside the ground for an unspecified period of time after full-time. The city of Bilbao is also preparing for the arrival of hundreds of supporters from Greece, who will be travelling for the FIBA Europa Cup basketball final between Bilbao Basket and PAOK Thessaloniki on Wednesday evening. The full Basque police force is expected to be on high alert across the two major events, following incidents after Athletic hosted Roma in the previous Europa League round last month. “There will be a coordinated operation between the Municipal Police, the Ertzaintza - the Basque Country Police - and the club ahead of this Thursday's Europa League match,” Athletic Bilbao said in an official club statement. “The planned operation will primarily affect the area surrounding San Mames, with the aim of establishing a series of measures aimed at ensuring the safety of both fans, as well as the general public.” The upcoming clashes involving Rangers and PAOK basketball fans will serve as almost a test run for security measures ahead of the Europa League final, which is also due to be held at San Mames on May 21st. With everything to play for on Thursday, Barry Ferguson’s side will be hoping to gain the upper-hand on Bilbao in their own back yard. Despite going down to ten men after just 13 minutes, the Light Blues were able to see out a stalemate at Ibrox to leave everything wide open for the second leg. “Obviously difficult when you go down to 10 men but I thought the game plan that I gave them, they worked ever so hard to make sure that it never went all the way down,” Ferguson said after the first leg performance. “It has been a problem conceding goals. Since I've come in, that's one of the areas where we've tried to work really hard. That's what I want to see from my defenders, I want to defend. “What I've seen tonight out there was a team that took the instructions on. Obviously the chat we had on Monday really sunk in. They took the information in as well and that's important.”