Freiburg reach Europa League last 16, Stuttgart in play-offs

Freiburg were among the teams to qualify automatically for the Europa League last 16 on Thursday despite a first defeat, with 10-man Roma snatching the last direct berth as the league phase ended.

Table toppers Lyon and Aston Villa had already secured their guaranteed spot and will be joined by Midtjylland, Real Betis, Porto, Braga and Roma, who drew 1-1 at unseeded play-off side Panathinaikos despite Gianluca Mancini seeing red on 15 minutes.

Freiburg lost 1-0 at unseeded play-off team Lille after Olivier Giround's stoppage-time penalty and a 74th-minute dismissal for Maxi Eggestein. But the Black Forest side still went straight through in seventh after just one defeat in eight league phase matches.

"On the one hand it is a defeat, but on the other it is a huge achievement for us," Freiburg coach Julian Schuster told Nitro.

"It is annoying to concede late but with a bit of time, we can be very proud of what we have done."

Fellow Germans VfB Stuttgart had to settle for a seeded play-off spot despite making a flying start at home to Young Boys Bern, Deniz Undav and Ermedin Demirović scoring inside the first seven minutes.

They were flirting with the coveted eighth place at that point but a comeback from the Swiss side levelled the scores. Chema Andrés snatched a 90th-minute winner for the hosts, yet a play-off beckons.

"We have won the game and still it was not enough," Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeness said. "It was all a bit more emotional than we thought. But we will learn from it."

Stuttgart finish 11th and Young Boys crash out of the competition on goal difference.

Feyenoord, Basel, Salzburg bow out

Other seeded play-offs teams are Genk, Bologna, Ferencváros, Nottingham Forest, Viktoria Plzeň, Red Star Belgrade and Celta Vigo.

Unseeded teams include PAOK, Fenerbahçe, Celtic, Ludogorets, Dinamo Zagreb and Brann.

Betis finished fourth after a 2-1 victory in Seville against twice winners Feyenoord, who were among the bigger names to be eliminated completely alongside Basel, Romanians FCSB and Salzburg.

Porto, who won European club football's second-tier trophy in 2003 and 2011, hit back from going a goal down to win 3-1 at home to already eliminated Rangers and ended up fifth.

First-placed Lyon beat Greece's PAOK 4-2. A minute's silence was held before the game in memory of the seven PAOK fans who died in a minibus crash in Romania en route to the game in France.

Forest inflicted a first league phase defeat on Ferencváros, a Bence Ötvös own goal, Igor Jesus' brace and a late James McAtee penalty sealing a 4-0 win at the City Ground as both sides had to settle for seeded play-off places.

The knockout phase play-off draw is on Friday. Although the seeded and unseeded teams are known, a draw will still take place to decide the exact fixtures after clubs were paired for fair play reasons.

The pick of the play-offs games could be Celtic against Stuttgart and Forest versus Fenerbahçe if it so pans out.

The play-off first legs are on February 19.