Nyon, Aug, 30: Manchester City faces a trip north of the Arctic Circle in the middle of the European winter after the dates of this season’s Champions League games were published on Saturday.
City will play an away match at Norwegian champion Bodo/Glimt on Jan. 20, meaning Pep Guardiola and his team of mega-stars will face harsh temperatures at the 8,000-capacity Aspmyra stadium – a venue farther north than soccer’s top club competition has ever been.
Bodo/Glimt is a tournament debutant like Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty, whose first-ever Champions League match – at Sporting Lisbon – is the longest away trip in the competition’s history.
Kairat will have to travel across three time zones and more than 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles) to Lisbon from Almaty, near Kazakhstan’s border with China, for the Sept. 18 game on the Champions League’s first matchday.
Almaty can have temperatures as low as minus-20 C (minus-4 F) in January – chillier even than Bodo/Glimt – so Club Brugge’s visit to Kairat on Jan. 20 could be the coldest game in Champions League history.
Paris Saint-Germain opens the defense of its title at home to Atalanta on Sept. 17.
Kevin De Bruyne won’t have long to wait before his match against Man City, his former long-time club. He will make his return to Etihad Stadium on Sept. 18. (AP)
