Europa League: Your Running Commentary

By AVI CREDITOR

The Europa League field will be down to 16 teams Thursday, as a slate of 15 second-leg matches will determine who moves on to the next round of the knockout stage.

Benfica took care of business by eliminating Hertha Berlin 4-0 (5-1 aggregate) on Tuesday.

Landon Donovan, Tim Howard and the rest of Everton will look to hold on to their 2-1 edge at Sporting Lisbon at 3:05 p.m. EST (DirecTV channel 462), hoping that a late penalty that yielded an away goal last week won't make the difference in their tie.

The other matches that kick off at 3:05 are:

• Fenerbahce vs. Lille (DirecTV 467, Lille leads 2-1)
• Hapoel Tel Aviv vs. Rubin Kazan (DirecTV 464, Rubin Kazan leads 3-0)
• Juventus vs. Ajax (GOLTV, Juventus leads 2-1)
• SV Salzburg vs. Standard Liege (DirecTV 468, Standard Liege leads 3-2)
• Valencia vs. Club Brugge (DirecTV 465, Club Brugge leads 1-0)
• VfL Wolfsburg vs. Villarreal (DirecTV 463, teams tied 2-2)
• Werder Bremen vs. Twente Enschede (DirecTV 466, Twente leads 1-0)

Earlier Thursday, the following teams advanced to the Round of 16:

• Anderlecht (defeated Athletic Bilbao 4-0, 5-1 aggregate)
• Panathinaikos (defeated AS Roma 3-2, 6-4 aggregate)
• Marseille (defeated FC Copenhagen 3-1, 6-2 aggregate)
• Liverpool (defeated Unirea Uziceni 3-1, 4-1 aggregate)
• Atletico Madrid (defeated Galatasaray 2-1, 3-2 aggregate)
• Fulham (drew 1-1 with Shakhtar Donetsk, 3-2 aggregate)
• Hamburg SV (lost to PSV Eindhoven 3-2, 3-3 aggregate, advanced on away goals)

If you will be watching any or all of these games on TV or via live Internet feed, please share your thoughts and any play-by-play in the comments section below.