SASSUOLO, ITALY – AUGUST 23: Kevin De Bruyne of Napoli and teammate Scott McTominay pose for a photo at full-time following their victory in the Serie A match between US Sassuolo Calcio and SSC Napoli at Mapei Stadium Citta del Tricolore on August 23, 2025 in Sassuolo, Italy. (Photo by Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
Napoli are preparing for their return to Champions League action after a one-season absence, but their 2025-26 campaign will get underway on Thursday evening rather than the customary Tuesday or Wednesday night slots. Here’s why.
Why Napoli are playing in the Champions on Thursday
After the expansion and reformatting of the Champions in 2024-25, with 36 teams now participating instead of the previously recognised 23-team competition, there has been a slight change to the scheduling of all three of UEFA’s club competitions.
EPA-EFE/JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT
Each of the Champions, Europa League and Conference League will have one ‘exclusive’ matchweek per season, i.e. a midweek slot where no matches from the other two competitions will be played.
For the Champions, the exclusive matchweek will fall on September 16, 17 and 18. For the Europa League, it will be September 24 and September 25. For the Conference League, the exclusive fixtures will fall on December 18.
That means that for this week only, Champions fixtures will be split evenly across three days, with six matches taking place on Tuesday evening, six on Wednesday and six on Thursday.
The Manchester City-Napoli clash is one of the six matches that has been selected to be played on Thursday night, along with Copenhagen-Bayer Leverkusen, Club Brugge-Monaco, Eintracht Frankfurt-Galatasaray, Sporting CP-Kairat and Newcastle-Barcelona.
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