After winning the UEFA Champions League play-off against Serie A side Lazio with a spectacular 3-0 home triumph after losing 0-1 in Rome, Bundesliga side Bayer 04 Leverkusen were drawn in a group with BATE Borisov, AS Roma and last year's Champions League winners, Barcelona.

This first game may be the easiest for Roger Schmidt's team on paper but it shouldn't be considered as a matter of pure form. In the 2012/13 Champions League, German champions Bayern München lost 1-3 to the Belarusian team in group stage. Andrey Harbunow, the BATE goalkeeper at the time, had a perfect day and only let in Franck Ribéry's stoppage time consolation goal.

Still, if Leverkusen do not win this game, it could be a quite difficult task to qualify for the last 16 with games against Barcelona and Roma to come. 

Key players

Leverkusen will need their talented forward players to show their worth. With players like free-kick specialist Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Karim Bellarabi and Stefan Kießling, the loss of Heung-min Son may not affect them as badly as first feared. BATE will put all their hopes onto star player Alexander Hleb's shoulders He played for Arsenal and FC Barcelona and is most probably the best and most well-known Belarusian footballer of all time. 

Team news

In the last Bundesliga game against new-boys SV Darmstadt 98, Leverkusen's attacking players couldn't beat Lilien 'keeper Christian Mathenia and lost 0-1 thanks to an early goal from Aytaç Sulu. The first four games seen Bayer lose and win twice. They are only 13th in the Bundesliga table. For BATE, their last league game ended in a 1-1 draw against Cup winner Shakhtyor Soligorsk, but lead the table by eight points from Dinamo Minsk.

Predicted line-ups

Bayer Leverkusen: Leno - Hilbert, Tah, Papadopoulos, Wendell - L. Bender, Calhanoglu - Bellarabi, Mehmedi - Kießling, Hernandez

BATE Borisov: Chernik - Zhavnerchik, Polyakov, Milunovic, Mladenovic - A. Volodko, Aleksievich - Stasevich, Hleb, Gordeychuk - Signevich

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