#champions-league

#champions-league

Bayer Leverkusen confirmed their place in the Champions League's knockout-stage play-offs after dismantling Villarreal in a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Kasper Hjulmand's side delivered an emphatic performance at BayArena, setting up a meeting with either Borussia Dortmund or Olympiacos, where the victors will reach the last 16. A needless Arnau Tenas error handed Leverkusen their 12th-minute lead when the goalkeeper stalled too long over a clearance, with Malik Tillman charging him down to deflect the ball into an empty net.

Alex Baena was denied the opener after VAR spotted he was offside when sweeping home, and Julian Alvarez saw a goal straight from a corner forced to be re-taken, with Sorloth meeting David Hancko's cross with an emphatic header between those incidents to have Atleti ahead. But Bodo were level when Fredrik Bjorkan found Sjovold down the right, and the full-back drilled his shot past Jan Oblak.

Sporting CP joined Europe's heavyweights in the Champions League's last 16 after a dramatic 3-2 comeback win at Athletic Club. The Portuguese side were reliant on results elsewhere going their way to have a realistic hope of a top-eight finish even with a victory on Wednesday. But as Real Madrid were beaten and Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle United drew with one another, Sporting were struggling to hold up their end of the bargain heading into stoppage time.

Monaco progressed into the play-off round of the Champions League after a 0-0 draw with Juventus at Stade-Louis II. The Ligue 1 side finished 21st in the league phase, despite being on the brink of elimination at half-time, while Juventus ended the league phase in 13th to join Monaco in the playoffs. The best chance of the match came after just 56 seconds.

After a dire first half at Signal Iduna Park, Dimarco scored with a wonderful free-kick with 10 minutes remaining - a goal that momentarily put Inter into the top eight of the table. But, by the time Diouf netted a late second, Inter had already slipped to 10th, and they will now face either Bodo/Glimt or Benfica - whose goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin dramatically scored a 98th-minute goal in a 4-2 win over Real Madrid to keep them in the competition - in the play-offs.

The two which perform best across the three European competitions this season will be handed European Performance Spots (EPS). That means fifth place in the Premier League table could go from being a Europa League place to a ticket into the Champions League - Newcastle benefited this way last season. But will an English club get that reward again? To work out who are the successful nations, Uefa takes into consideration the overall performance of clubs in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.

But that's the way of the modern game: an extremely protracted clearing of the throat before the real business begins. Uefa will proudly tell the world that only six teams have nothing to play for in the final round of games on Wednesday, but whether it was worth 126 games to get to the mild peril of Napoli or Club Brugge possibly going out, or the questionable thrill of finding out whether Tottenham or Atalanta will have to endure the playoff round, is debatable.

When you lose, you're never in a good mood. But we're all experienced enough and know how to deal with defeats. You experience defeats not only in football, but also off the pitch, and you learn from them. We're fully focused and motivated for the game tomorrow,

Starting with the hosts, getting their group stage finale underway on Wednesday night sat one-point adrift of finding a route into the play-off places, Club Brugge will be more than aware that they face a must-win showdown here. Keeping their knockout stage dreams away last week as they secured a thumping 4-1 victory away at European debutants Kairat Almaty, Ivan Leko's men will be dreaming of a repeat performance when they return to the Jan Breydel Stadium.