The UEFA Europa League playoffs, the continent's second most important club tournament, will kick off this Thursday in an intense round featuring eight matches. According to the Argentine News Agency (NA), the action will begin at 14:45 with four simultaneous matches. Among them is the away match for Spain's Celta de Vigo, featuring Argentine Franco Cervi, against PAOK of Greece, while England's Nottingham Forest, with Argentine player Nicolás Domínguez, will face Fenerbahce in Turkey. In the same time slot, Dinamo Zagreb of Croatia will host Genk of Belgium, and Brann of Norway will host Bologna of Italy. Later, starting at 17:00, the final four matches of the first leg will take place. In these fixtures, France's Lille will host Serbia's Red Star, Greece's Panathinaikos will face the Czech Republic's Viktoria Plzen, Bulgaria's Ludogorets will play Hungary's Ferencvaros, and Scotland's Celtic will take on Germany's Stuttgart. The return legs will be played a week later, on February 26, and will determine the final eight teams to advance to the round of 16. The Europa League playoffs involve teams that finished from 9th to 24th in the group stage.
