Football
Club Brugge beat Atalanta to advance to Champions League round-of-16 for second time
Joe Lyons is a sports writer with years of experience on reputable sports and gambling websites. Joe has also been published by Nottingham Forest, working with the academy and senior teams to produce content on matchdays. He formerly covered the Premier League and EFL as an on-site reporter during the 2020/21 season for Prost International. He is an expert in a range of sports including soccer, basketball, horse racing and American football. Joe specialises in long form content alongside news, tips and betting. Joe has a keen eye for the sports betting industry in the USA which covers the NBA and NFL, tracking and analysing the market as it changes throughout the season.
Get to know Joe Lyons betterPublished18 Feb 2025
Club Brugge reached the Champions League round-of-16 for the second time in club history after brushing Atlanta aside with ease.
The Belgian outfit took a 2-1 lead to Italy and ran away 3-1 winners on the night to close out the tie with an aggregate score of 5-2.
19-year-old Chemsdine Talbi’s quick-fire double saw Brugge storm into a 2-0 lead before the half-hour mark and Ferran Jutgla made it three on the stroke of the interval.
Talbi became the fourth-youngest player to score a brace in a Champions League knockout match after Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland and Nicolo Zaniolo.
Ademola Lookman responded immediately for the hosts but it was too little too late for the reigning Europa League champions who could not overcome a sizeable deficit.
Brugge are one of four teams to have booked their spot in the round-of-16 alongside Benfica, Bayern Munich and Feyenoord ahead of Friday’s draw in Switzerland.
Nicky Hayen’s side won on Italian soil for the first time since 2003 and they will face either Lille or Aston Villa in the next round.
Before Tuesday’s victory, Brugge had failed to win on all seven of their away trips to face Italian opponents in Europe (two draws and five defeats including a 3-1 loss to AC Milan in October).
WATCH: Atalanta 1-3 Club Brugge Highlights
According to the best football betting sites, Club Brugge remain a stark outsider to win the competition with odds of as big as 100/1 with some firms.
Brugge were semi-finalists in the Conference League two seasons ago and their best European Cup finish came as runners-up in the 1977/78 campaign.
With an incredible nine saves on the night, Liverpool stopper Simon Mignolet prevented 3.32 goals – the most by any goalkeeper in the competition over the last three seasons.
The Belgians set out to defy a nasty stat of being eliminated on 16 occasions in major European competitions when they’ve won the first leg of a knockout tie – more than any other side in history – and they did just that.