Those who enjoy looking at calendars and making plans ahead will have noticed that Manchester City and Newcastle United are scheduled to play their initial Champions League matches on a Thursday night this season.
This is unusual, given that the tournament typically takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with Thursday generally being reserved for the Europa League and the Conference League. Think of classic Thursday night television.
So what is the reason for this change, which sees Barcelona visiting St James’ Park and Napoli travelling to the Etihad, alongside four other Champions League games on Thursday, September 18?
Thursday night Champions League games occurred last year as part of adjustments by UEFA
Champions League matches on Thursday evenings also occurred in the previous season, with a small number of games being moved as part of UEFA’s adjustments to its three continental cup competitions.
Arsenal was the only English team affected on that occasion, with their initial match away to Atalanta occurring on what one might playfully consider ‘the third day’.
The reason for this is that UEFA has essentially determined that the Champions League and Europa League will each have their opening weeks to themselves in September.
Given the importance of maximizing TV rights sales, the games from the other competitions are spread out as a one-off each season to help fill the gap.
The first week of the awkwardly-named Champions League league phase comes a week before the Europa League equivalent begins, and two weeks before the Conference League properly gets underway – and therefore there were no Thursday night slots available on the week commencing September 15.
Consequently, UEFA has moved six games to that Thursday night:
- FC Copenhagen vs Bayer Leverkusen
- Brugge vs Monaco
- Eintracht Frankfurt vs Galatasaray
- Sporting vs Kairat
- Newcastle vs Barcelona
- Manchester City vs Napoli
In any case, it provides an additional night to utilize your midweek substitutions in Fantasy Champions League.
The following week, there will be no Champions League or Conference League football, which means the Europa League will extend its matches to include Wednesday evening as well during that week.
That’s why Nottingham Forest will be playing Real Betis and Celtic will be visiting Crvena Zvezda (Red Star) on Wednesday, September 24, rather than the customary Thursday.
