Villarreal vs Bayer Leverkusen - Schmidt predicts tight tie with Villarreal

Bayer Leverkusen head coach Roger Schmidt has predicted a tight affair when his team visit Villarreal in the first leg of their last-16 Europa League tie.

The Spaniards are impressing in fourth place in the Primera Division, in which they have so far only conceded 19 goals, while Leverkusen are eighth in the Bundesliga having recovered from going three goals down to draw 3-3 with Augsburg at the weekend.

Schmidt told the club's official website: "It will be an intense and probably very tight match.

"All of their players are willing to defend."

Of their improved confidence following their fight back at Augsburg, winger Julian Brandt told Bayer 04 TV: "Particularly when things aren't going so well and we're under pressure from the media, coming back from 3-0 down shows the great spirit in the squad. It was a good response.

"As a player you ask yourself if a game is already lost, but we thought we had a chance to get back into the game somehow. It's not the first game where we've come back from being behind, and it does give us a boost before the Villarreal game.

"We don't need to hide in the Europa League. We won pretty convincingly against Sporting Lisbon. If one or two of the injured players are back, we'll head to Spain full of confidence.

"A goal and a draw would be good for us. We'd be happy with that, as we're at home in the second leg. I think we're relatively relaxed and we'll hopefully put on a good result.

"I don't want to talk about the final, but it's not out of sight and we're up for it."

Leverkusen are without defender Roberto Hilbert for both legs, owing to a broken collarbone, but central defenders Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Jonathan Tah and Omer Toprak have travelled, and strike duo Javier Hernandez and and Stefan Kiessling have been passed fit.

Villarreal are without midfielders Samuel and Jonathan dos Santos due to metatarsal and Achilles tendon injuries respectively, but forward Leo Baptistao believes his team possess the strength in depth to overcome their absences.

"The whole team is fine," he told FourFourTwo. "We have a few losses and we can make rotations. We have a big squad.

"We're very focused to confront a great team like Leverkusen. The first match is crucial in a tie.

"We will try to find their weaknesses and we have been working on that."