2025-26 UEL Round of 16: First Leg – Lille vs Aston Villa

Lille meet Aston Villa in the first leg of their Round of 16 tie in 2025-26 UEFA Europa League. 

Lille overturned an aggregate deficit to defeat Red Star Belgrade in their Knockout Play-Off tie, whilst Villa finished second in the League Phase and bypassed that knockout stage.

 

Team News

Lille have no fresh injury concerns to report following their 1-1 Ligue 1 draw at home to Lorient.

Marc-Aurele Caillard (elbow), Osame Sahraoui (groin), Hamza Igamane (ACL), Ethan Mbappe Lottin (thigh) and Ousmane Toure (knee) are ruled out.

Villa will be without Matty Cash after he suffered a calf injury during their 4-1 Premier League loss against Chelsea.

John McGinn (knee) and Harvey Elliott (knock) could return but Andres Garcia (hamstring), Youri Tielemans (ankle) and Boubacar Kamara (knee) remain absent.

 

When is Kick-Off?

Lille meet Villa at Stade Pierre-Mauroy on Thursday 12 March at 6:45pm CET (5:45pm UK Time), live on TNT Sports 1 in the UK.

 

Stat Attack

• Lille have avoided defeat in three of four previous meetings against Villa in all UEFA competitions (W2, D1, L1).
• Villa are yet to win away to Lille in all UEFA competitions (D1, L1).
• Lille are yet to keep a clean sheet at home against Villa across all UEFA competitions.
• Each of Lille’s last two home matches in this competition ended in 1-0 results, of which they beat Freiburg in January in their last League Phase game then lost to Red Star Belgrade in the first leg of their Knockout Play-Off last month.
• Villa have kept two clean sheets in their four away games in this season’s European campaign (W3, L1).

 

Prediction

Having scraped past Red Star Belgrade in the knockout play-offs, Lille will need to at their best if they’re to seize the first-leg initiative but they’ve won just four of 14 matches in 2026, so a good start and the opening goal is imperative if they want the upper hand going into the second leg.

Villa meanwhile will feel that they were robbed of a domestic win against Chelsea because they were clinical in the first half on the counter-attack after their opening goal, yet a mixture of poor finishing and VAR decisions worked against them on top of some sloppy marking.

I however do expect Villa to bounce back after having had a full week of preparation and with Lille’s defence not the most strongest, I fancy Unai Emery’s Villains to win this leg.

Prediction: Lille 1-2 Aston Villa

Result: Lille 0-1 Aston Villa