Thursday nights are back, and for a lot of expats they are the best football of the week. The Europa League serves up the kind of ties the Champions League would not touch, and this month it is doing it twice. Matchday 2 lands on Thursday 15 October, Matchday 3 follows on 22 October, and both are packed.
If you follow a club that lives in this competition, you already know the drill. It is the night the whole table is decided, one long list of teams from Lisbon to Lillestrøm, and the away days are exactly as strange as they sound.
What is on first
On 15 October, Benfica host Celtic in Lisbon, which is the headline for anyone with a Scottish or Portuguese connection. Celta Vigo take on Juventus, Marseille meet Olympiacos, and Lyon face Crystal Palace. Sunderland travel to Torreense, Real Sociedad go to Union Saint-Gilloise, and there is a quiet gem in Lech Poznan against Bayer Leverkusen.
Most of those kick off at 18:45 CET, with a few at 20:00. That is friendly for anyone in Europe and awkward for readers in the US, where the opening games land in the middle of the working day.
And then the next round
Matchday 3 on 22 October is even busier. Juventus host Rennes, Bournemouth welcome Milan, Besiktas face Crystal Palace, and Celtic take on Celta. Sunderland stay on the road, this time at Lech Poznan, while Leverkusen travel to OFI Crete and Marseille go to Sturm Graz. A few of these start as early as 18:45, others closer to 20:00.
Why it matters if you live abroad
Here is the thing nobody warns you about when you move. The channel that shows your club back home does not travel with you. Your old subscription stops working the moment you cross the border, and the local package almost never carries a midweek European tie that involves a team from your country. So you end up scrolling highlights the next morning and pretending that counts.
An IPTV subscription closes that gap. The channels from your home country come to whatever screen you already own, wherever you happen to be living, so a Thursday night in October is still a Thursday night.
How to watch it
Check the full worldwide line-up on our Channels & Coverage page, then start a free 24-hour test and see your own channels in minutes. If you want the wider picture on watching sport away from home, our guide on live sports abroad covers football, F1 and more.
Related reading
- Conference League kicks off: Ajax, Brighton and the longest away day in Europe
- Champions League Matchday 3: the ties worth staying up for
- Watching live sports abroad: football, F1 and more
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