Why Man City vs. Napoli Champions League clash is being played on Thursday | OneFootball

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 League on Thursday

After the expansion and reformatting of the Champions League 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.

The Champions League trophy

EPA-EFE/JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT

Each of the Champions League, 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 League, 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 League fixtures will be split evenly across three days, with six matches taking place on Tuesday evening, six on Wednesday and six on Thursday.

NAPLES, ITALY – AUGUST 30: Frank Anguissa of SSC Napoli celebrates after scoring his side last second winner during the Serie A match between SSC Napoli and Cagliari Calcio at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on August 30, 2025 in Naples, Italy. (Photo by Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)

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.