European football: Club Brugge face Atlético Madrid, Racing Genk play Dinamo Zagreb
Club Brugge will face Atlético Madrid in the next round of the Champions League. The home match will be played at Jan Breydel Stadium on 17 or 18 February, with the return a week later. The winner will qualify for the last 16.
Club knew they would face either Atlético or Juventus in the draw at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, on Friday. They qualified for the intermediate round with a 19th-place finish and 10 points in the league phase.
Atlético finished 14th with 13 points, with a 3-1 victory over Union Saint-Gilles among their results.
The two sides last met in the 2022-2023 season, before the format was of the competition was changed. Club won 2-0 at home in the pool phase with goals from Kamal Sowah and Ferran Jutgla. The return match ended 0-0.
The winner will take on Liverpool or Tottenham of the Premier League in the next round.
In the Europa League, Genk will face Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb. The first leg will be played on 19 February in Croatia, with the return leg a week later at the Cegeka Arena.
Genk beat Malmö 2-1 in their last match of the league phase but narrowly missed out on direct qualification for the top eight, finishing in ninth. Dinamo Zagreb finished 23rd, the penultimate qualifying place.
The winner will face either Italian side AS Roma or German side SC Freiburg in the round of 16.
The away match will be played without Genk supporters, following crowd trouble at last week’s game in Utrecht. The club has also been fined 50,000 euros.
The start of the match was delayed for almost an hour after police banned fans from entering the stadium for security reasons. In the process, clashes erupted and several people were injured. Genk condemned the “disproportionate action of the local authorities” and said it would refund its supporters’ tickets and travel costs.
Genk eventually won the match 2-0.
#FlandersNewsService | French former footballer Robert Pires holds up the name of Club Brugge during the draw for the UEFA Champions League knockout phase play-off in Nyon, 30 January 2026 © PHOTO HAROLD CUNNINGHAM / AFP
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