LONDON (AP) — The Conference League concludes its first phase with the sixth round on Thursday and Strasbourg the only team to have already secured a direct spot to the round of 16.
The French side tops the standings after four wins and a draw, and closes at home to Breidablik from Iceland.
The 36 clubs in the third-tier European competition play six different opponents and are ranked in a single-standings format. The clubs in the Champions League and Europa League each play eight matches.
The top eight teams in the Conference League go directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams placed ninth to 24th advance to the two-leg knockout playoffs in February. The bottom 12 teams are eliminated.
Crystal Palace, making its European debut after winning the FA Cup last season, is in ninth place — a point behind AEK Athens, Samsunspor, Sparta Prague, Rayo Vallecano and Mainz.
A home win at Selhurst Park over another newcomer, KuPS from Finland, could send the Eagles directly to the last 16.
Two-time runner-up Fiorentina is at Lausanne-Sport. Dutch side AZ Alkmaar, Slovenia’s Celje and Cyprus' AEK Larnaca also need to win in their last game to have a chance to advance directly.
Alkmaar plays Poland’s Jagiellonia, Celje meets Shelbourne and AEK Larnaca faces Macedonia’s Shkendija.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Fiorentina's Moise Kean, left, celebrates scoring during the Conference League soccer match between Fiorentina and Dynamo Kyiv in Florence, Italy, Thursday Dec. 11, 2025. (Massimo Paolone/LaPresse via AP)
Crystal Palace's Adam Wharton reacts after missing a scoring chance during the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Manchester City in London, Sunday, Dec.14, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mixed on Thursday after declines for AI stocks dragged the U.S. market to its worst day in nearly a month.
Traders were waiting for an update later in the day on U.S. inflation, and on a decision Friday by Japan’s central bank on interest rates. The Bank of Japan is expected to raise its key rate by 0.25 percentage point to tamp down price pressures, despite a contraction in the July-September quarter.
Germany's DAX edged 0.2% higher to 24,007.33, while the CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.4% to 8,114.30. Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.3% to 9,800.00.
The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.3%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 0.1%.
In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 lost 1% to 49,001.50, with technology shares leading the decline.
Technology and telecoms giant SoftBank sank 4%. Computer chip maker Tokyo Electron lost 3.2% while chip testing equipment maker Advantest dropped 3.3%.
Honda Motor Corp. fell 2.2% after reports said it was suspending production at some plants in Japan and China due to shortages of computer chips.
South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.5% to 3,994.51, also pulled lower by selling of shares in electronics companies and automakers. LG Electronics declined 3.1%, while Samsung Electronics lost 0.3%.
Chinese markets were mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng bounced back from early losses to gain 0.1%, closing at 25,498.13. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.2% higher, to 3,876.37.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was nearly unchanged at 8,588.20.
Later Thursday, the U.S. government will report on inflation last month. Economists expect that report to show prices for U.S. consumers continue to rise faster than anyone would like.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Dow dipped 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite dropped 1.8%.
Slightly more stocks rose within the S&P 500 than fell, but they got drowned out by the drops for companies in the artificial-intelligence industry.
The sector is being pressured by questions over whether Big Tech companies' share prices have shot too high, whether all the investment in AI will be profitable and productive enough to justify the costs, and by worries over stratospheric levels of debt some companies are taking on to pay for it all.
Broadcom dropped 4.5%, Oracle fell 5.4% and CoreWeave sank 7.1%. Nvidia, the chip company that’s become Wall Street’s most influential stock because of its tremendous size, fell 3.8% and was the day's heaviest weight on the S&P 500.
Power companies that jumped earlier in the year on expectations for stronger demand from electricity-sucking data centers also lost some of their shine. Constellation Energy fell 6.7%.
On the winning side of Wall Street were oil companies, after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela.
That sent the price of a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude higher by 1.2% to $55.94. just a day after it sank to its lowest level since 2021.
Early Thursday, U.S. crude was up 12 cents at $55.93 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 8 cents to $59.76 per barrel. It had climbed 1.3% on Wednesday.
Oil prices have been falling for most of this year on expectations that companies are pumping more than enough crude to meet the world’s demand.
Netflix added 0.2% after Warner Bros. Discovery’s board said it still recommends shareholders approve a buyout offer from the streaming giant for its Warner Bros. business, rather than a competing hostile bid from Paramount Skydance for the entire company.
Warner Bros. Discovery fell 2.4%, while Paramount Skydance dropped 5.4%.
In other dealings early Thursday, the U.S. dollar rose to 155.92 Japanese yen from 155.70 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1727 from $1.1743.
Dealers work near the screens showing the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, left, and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Jim Boyle, CEO of Medline Industries, poses for a picture outside the Nasdaq MarketSite, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Dealers work near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A dealer watches computer monitors at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
