Article body analysed

Last Updated 22nd January 2026 at 10: 43 Please Note: All times UK. Tables are subject to change. The BBC is not responsible for any changes that may be made. UEFA Champions League All competitions All competitions All competitions Bayer Leverkusen and Villarreal will meet for a fifth time in Europe, with the Spanish side winning three of the last four and going unbeaten overall (W3 D1). All four meetings came in the UEFA Europa League between 2011 and 2016. Villarreal’s four games against Bayer Leverkusen (W3 D1) is their joint-most without defeat against an opponent in major European competition, also winning three and drawing one of four games against Dynamo Kyiv. The only team Bayer Leverkusen have faced more times than Villarreal (4 – D1 L3) without winning in major European competition is Manchester United (6 – D2 L4). Meanwhile, of teams they have faced 4+ times, only against Liverpool (80% - 4/5) have they lost a higher percentage of their matches than against the Spanish side (75% - 3/4). Villarreal’s last away victory against a German side was against Bayer Leverkusen in March 2011 (3-2). Since then, they haven’t won any of their five away trips to face German opponents in European competition (D3 L2). Bayer Leverkusen are winless in their last four home UEFA Champions League matches (D2 L2) – only once have they had a longer winless run, drawing five in a row between December 1997 and November 1999. Villarreal are the only Spanish team to play as many as seven games (D1 L6) in a European Cup/UEFA Champions League campaign and not win any of them.   Bayer Leverkusen manager Kasper Hjulmand is winless in all six home UEFA Champions League matches (D1 L2 with FC Nordsjælland, D2 L1 with Leverkusen) and has conceded 20 goals in those six games, an average of 3. 3 per game. Only Mustafa Denizli, Jindrich Trpisovsky and Vladimír Weiss have managed more home games without winning (7 each) than the Dane. Bayer Leverkusen’s Alejandro Grimaldo has made more line-breaking passes leading to shots (16) than any other player in the UEFA Champions League this season. The Spaniard is also one of only five players with 10+ passes breaking the opposition’s defensive line in the competition this term (10). Tani Oluwaseyi has scored in each of his last two UEFA Champions League appearances for Villarreal (v Copenhagen on MD6 and Ajax on MD7), and could become the first player to score in three in a row for the club in the competition. Aleix García completed 107 passes for Bayer Leverkusen on MD7 in their defeat to Olympiakos and is averaging 75 successful passes per 90 minutes in the UEFA Champions League in 2025-26, the best ratio by a Leverkusen player on record in a season since 2004-05. Copyright © 2026 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.