Roger Schmidt has paid tribute to his Bayer Leverkusen troops, whose 3-0 win over Lazio to reach the Champions League group stages tonight was "close to perfection".
Goals from Hakan Calhanoglu, Admir Mehmedi and Karim Bellarabi did the damage in Germany as Schmidt's men overturned their 1-0 first-leg deficit in style.
"There is room for improvement, of course. But the way we played after 2-0, pressed and kept the ball away from our goal, was close to perfection," he told Sky Germany.
"We're validating what we showed last year. We are able to power through our game against international opponents with high quality.
"And that we managed to do so under this pressure shows we have a certain maturity."
The group-stage draw will take place in Monaco on Friday.
