Newcastle’s 5,061-mile journey to Azerbaijan – and why groups are touring additional than ever

Newcastle United must take the lengthy highway on this season’s Champions League.

A 1-1 draw with Paris Saint-Germain on matchday eight final month meant Eddie Howe’s aspect completed twelfth within the league part, wanting the highest eight who progressed on to the spherical of 16. They now face a two-leg play-off in opposition to Azerbaijani aspect Qarabag to achieve the knockout stage correct, with the away sport tonight (Wednesday).

It provides two extra fixtures to an already congested calendar — whereas their journey to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, the place Qarabag play their video games, is the longest ever made by an English membership within the competitors.

The 5,061-mile (8,100-kilometre) round-trip from Newcastle narrowly edges out Chelsea’s two earlier journeys to face Qarabag, together with a 2-2 draw on this season’s league part.

Of Chelsea’s visits, their match there within the 2017-18 season was the marginally longer journey of the 2, because it was performed at Azerbaijan’s nationwide floor, the Baku Olympic Stadium, which is additional east within the metropolis than this season’s venue, the Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium.

Newcastle’s league-phase schedule had been forgiving when it comes to geography, with solely Arsenal touring fewer 1000’s throughout the eight matches. But this journey means they leapfrog the opposite 5 Premier League sides competing on this season’s match for distance travelled.

Long-distance flights have been a recurring theme within the 2025-26 Champions League. By the tip of the league part, golf equipment had traveled round 313,131 miles — greater than the overall distance coated in any earlier version of the competitors.

Part of that may be a pure consequence of the expanded format launched final season. The league part now options 36 groups and 144 matches, greater than all the set of 125 video games performed in 2023-24, the ultimate marketing campaign beneath the outdated construction that featured eight teams of 4.

But it’s not solely this enlargement that has inflated the competitors’s air miles.

This season has already seen golf equipment log 100,000 miles greater than final yr’s complete, a determine that features the longest journey within the competitors’s historical past: Kazakhstan’s Kairat making an 8,594-mile spherical journey to face Sporting CP in Portugal’s capital Lisbon for his or her opening match of the league part.

Kairat are the easternmost aspect ever to compete within the Champions League, in a match that has stretched the size and breadth of the continent. It is little shock, then, that their journey to Lisbon is the longest on document, with Portugal the westernmost nation to play within the Champions League group stage/league part.

Meanwhile, Norwegian aspect Bodo/Glimt — who face Serie A aspect Inter within the play-offs — are the northernmost membership within the competitors, primarily based contained in the Arctic Circle. Apart from earlier contributors from Israel, eradicated Cypriot aspect Paphos are the southernmost group to qualify within the match’s historical past.

These journeys to Europe’s limits (and past in some circumstances — solely a small western a part of Kazakhstan is taken into account to be a part of the continent, with the remaining in Asia) increase legitimate questions in regards to the competitors’s carbon footprint, however has journey fatigue manifested itself on the pitch?

Turkey supplies an fascinating case research.

Manchester United had been the primary English membership to journey there for a Champions League fixture, dealing with Galatasaray in a 1993 second-round match. That sport is vividly remembered for its ferocious environment, infamously foreshadowed by a banner greeting the United gamers at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport that learn: ‘Welcome to Hell’.

United drew 0-0 on the night time, 3-3 on combination, and had been eradicated on away objectives, kick-starting a middling run of outcomes for English sides in Turkey. Across 20 away Champions League matches there, Premier League golf equipment have recorded seven wins, six attracts and 7 defeats.

Sir Alex Ferguson emerges from the tunnel for Manchester United’s 1993 sport in Istanbul in opposition to Galatasaray (Ross Kinnaird/EMPICS through Getty Images)

Part of that document is undoubtedly formed by the intimidating atmosphere generated by the house supporters, and by away fixtures being statistically more durable, no matter venue. But, in contrast with their outcomes at residence in opposition to golf equipment from the identical international locations, English sides have fared a lot worse in away matches in opposition to Eastern European opposition.

The graphic under reveals Premier League win charges within the Champions League, cut up between residence and away fixtures in opposition to golf equipment from throughout Europe. The greatest swing comes in opposition to Ukrainian groups.

No aspect from Ukraine has ever gained in 20 Champions League visits to England (they’ve drawn three), and English golf equipment have gained simply 26 per cent of the return fixtures on the market.

An identical sample exists in opposition to Greek opposition. Arsenal’s 3-2 defeat to Olympiacos within the 2015-16 group stage stays the one residence loss for an English aspect to a Greek one within the Champions League, however the steadiness shifts eleven sides from England board these three-to-four-hour flights to that a part of south-eastern Europe.

By distinction, Swiss golf equipment maybe take the nation’s status for neutrality a little bit too actually within the Champions League. Switzerland is the one nation (with a minimal of 10 residence and away video games) the place Premier League sides boast the next win fee away than at residence.

If any membership is properly versed in long-distance away days, it’s Newcastle — domestically, not less than. Their St James’ Park house is the northernmost stadium within the Premier League, and, together with north-east rivals Sunderland, they routinely face the longest journeys within the division.

Not that familiarity has geared up them for the pains of such journey. They have gained simply three of their 13 away league matches this season. After their date in Baku, Newcastle nonetheless have shut to three,000 miles to journey for his or her remaining Premier League fixtures this season, greater than another membership.

For tonight’s sport, any fatigue Newcastle feels is unlikely to bridge the gulf in high quality between the perimeters. In their closing league-phase fixture, Qarabag had been crushed 6-0 at Anfield by Liverpool.

Their journey to Baku could have been lengthy and turbulent, however the sport itself needs to be clean crusing for Howe and firm.