{"id":41684,"date":"2026-02-25T06:04:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=41684"},"modified":"2026-02-25T06:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:04:26","slug":"leverkusen-through-to-champions-league-last-16-after-olympiacos-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=41684","title":{"rendered":"Leverkusen through to Champions League last 16 after Olympiacos draw"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bayer Leverkusen are through to the last 16 of the Champions League after a scoreless home draw with Olympiacos on Tuesday, winning their play-off round tie 2-0 on aggregate.<\/p>\n

Leverkusen were below their best but did just enough to qualify after last week’s comfortable first-leg win in Greece.<\/p>\n

It was the first time Leverkusen made it through a two-legged Champions League knockout tie since they reached the final in 2002, when they lost 2-1 to Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

The 2024 German double winners will face either Premier League leaders Arsenal or German champions Bayern Munich, who eliminated Leverkusen at the last 16 stage last season.<\/p>\n

“The game didn’t go at all like we’d imagined. Too sluggish — really the only positive is that we kept a clean sheet and we’re through to the next round,” a frustrated Leverkusen captain Robert Andrich told Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n

“We needed more speed, more bite, both against the ball and with it — thankfully the opponent didn’t punish us.”<\/p>\n

Echoing his captain, Leverkusen midfielder Jonas Hofmann said coach Kasper Hjulmand “will probably go home and drink a beer out of frustration to wash down that performance. There’s nobody here who can be satisfied with that”.<\/p>\n

Leverkusen had not conceded at home in any competition since early January and were rarely troubled by the energetic but toothless Greek champions.<\/p>\n

Olympiacos rested six starters in their Greek Super League match on Saturday in the hopes of reaching the Champions League last 16 for the first time since 2013-14, when they were narrowly eliminated by Manchester United.<\/p>\n

Seeking to give his troops a little extra motivation, billionaire Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis — who also owns Nottingham Forest — promised an “unprecedented” financial bonus for reaching the last 16.<\/p>\n

Patrik Schick scored twice in three minutes in last week’s opening leg and the Czech striker was in the thick of things early on, heading just wide and dragging a lob over goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis but past the far post inside six minutes.<\/p>\n

After that early flurry, Leverkusen were content to sit back as the match wore on, forcing the visitors to try and create something.<\/p>\n

Leverkusen’s best chance of the match came midway through the second half when Alejandro Grimaldo blasted a shot against the crossbar with Tzolakis beaten.<\/p>\n

Right-back Lucas Vazquez, a Champions League winner with Real Madrid, limped off late in the second half in the only black mark for the hosts.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bayer Leverkusen are through to the last 16 of the Champions League after a scoreless home draw with Olympiacos on Tuesday, winning their play-off round tie 2-0 on aggregate. Leverkusen were below their best but did just enough to qualify after last week’s comfortable first-leg win in Greece. It was the first time Leverkusen made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}