UEFA Champions League returns with blockbuster opening round – catch …

The UEFA Champions League returns with a Matchday 1 packed with heavyweight clashes, fascinating reunions and some of European football’s biggest names. Spread across three days, the opening round immediately offers several fixtures capable of setting the tone for the campaign.

Tuesday provides a spectacular headline encounter at the Santiago Bernabéu, where Real Madrid host Inter Milan. The occasion will be particularly emotional for Jose Mourinho, who returns to the Champions League dugout with Madrid 13 years after his previous spell in charge. The Portuguese coach also faces his former club Inter, whom he guided from 2008 to 2010, including their famous 2010 Champions League triumph.

Inter president Giuseppe Marotta has also highlighted the significance of returning to Madrid. “When we talk about the Champions League, the charm and the emotion are always there,” he said, adding that Inter’s return to the Bernabéu would bring “many emotions that fit perfectly with this event, the most important one on the world stage”. afnews.co.za

There is another heavyweight clash in Porto, where Manchester City travel to face Porto, while Borussia Dortmund welcome Villarreal for an all-yellow clash. Aston Villa begin their European campaign away to Club Brugge, while Lille meet Real Betis.

Wednesday brings another collection of major encounters. Barcelona host Feyenoord, while Napoli welcome Arsenal in one of the standout fixtures of the entire opening round. Napoli’s Antonio Vergara has described the prospect of facing Arsenal and City as “spectacular games”, adding: “We can’t wait to experience the fantastic atmosphere of Champions League nights. We want to do well in Europe.”

Liverpool v Atletico Madrid is another meeting likely to generate considerable intrigue. Atletico coach Diego Simeone knows the scale of the challenge at Anfield, but insists his side will attempt to dictate the contest. “We will face a tough opponent but we have the intention of bringing the game to where we want it to go,” he said. Simeone added that Atletico will try to “hurt them in the game whenever we can”.

Reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain face Slovan Bratislava, while Sporting host Galatasaray, giving both fixtures their own potential for drama. Stuttgart face Viking in the earlier action.

Thursday sees Bayern Munich host Bodo-Glimt, while Roma travel to Fenerbahce and PSV face Shakhtar Donetsk. Leipzig visit Como, Slavia Prague meet Lens and Manchester United begin their campaign against Sabah.

For United, the return to Europe’s elite competition represents an important moment. Chief executive Omar Berrada has stressed the club’s desire to compete in the Champions League every season, saying: “This is a competition that we think we need to be playing in every season. We have some fantastic opponents.”

Berrada also reflected on the history of European nights at Old Trafford, noting that it “has been the home of some great moments in this competition” and expressing hope that United can create new memories. While he singled out a potential meeting with Bayern Munich as a fixture to look forward to, United’s immediate attention will be on making the perfect start against Sabah.

With Madrid, Inter, City, Barcelona, Arsenal, Liverpool, Atletico, Bayern and United all involved, Matchday 1 provides a reminder of the extraordinary depth of the Champions League. The first three days of action promise emotion, history and elite-level football from the outset.

Broadcast details

Times CAT

UEFA Champions League: Matchday 1

Tuesday 8 September

18:45: Club Brugge v Aston Villa – LIVE on SuperSport Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 1

18:45: AEK v LASK – LIVE on SuperSport Football Plus, SuperSport GOtv Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 2

21:00: Goals Show Tuesday – LIVE on SuperSport Events

21:00: Porto v Man City – LIVE on SuperSport Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 2

21:00: Real Madrid v Inter Milan – LIVE on SuperSport Football Plus and SuperSport Maximo 1

21:00: Dortmund v Villarreal – LIVE on SuperSport PSL, SuperSport Action Africa and SuperSport Maximo 3

21:00: Lille v Real Betis – LIVE on SuperSport La Liga and SuperSport Maximo 360

Wednesday 9 September

18:45: Barcelona v Feyenoord – LIVE on SuperSport Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 2

18:45: Stuttgart v Viking – LIVE on SuperSport Football Plus and SuperSport Maximo 1

21:00: Goals Show Wednesday – LIVE on SuperSport Events

21:00: Napoli v Arsenal – LIVE on SuperSport Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 2

21:00: Liverpool v Atletico Madrid – LIVE on SuperSport Football Plus and SuperSport Maximo 1

21:00: PSG v Slovan Bratislava – LIVE on SuperSport La Liga and SuperSport Maximo 3

21:00: Sporting v Galatasaray – LIVE on SuperSport PSL, SuperSport Action Africa and SuperSport Maximo 360

Thursday 10 September

18:45: Fenerbahce v Roma – LIVE on SuperSport Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 2

18:45: PSV v Shakhtar – LIVE on SuperSport Football Plus and SuperSport Maximo 1

21:00: Goals Show Thursday – LIVE on SuperSport Events

21:00: Bayern v Bodo-Glimt – LIVE on SuperSport Football Plus and SuperSport Maximo 1

21:00: Slavia Prague v Lens – LIVE on SuperSport PSL, SuperSport Action Africa and SuperSport Maximo 360

21:00: Como v Leipzig – LIVE on SuperSport La Liga and SuperSport Maximo 3

21:00: Man United v Sabah – LIVE on SuperSport Premier League and SuperSport Maximo 2

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Worcestershire have confirmed that Beyers Swanepoel has returned to South Africa earlier than planned to attend to matters relating to his domestic cricket commitments, with Usama Mir signed to replace him for the final three Rothesay County Championship matches of the season.

The departure comes against the backdrop of a turbulent year for Swanepoel, whose move to Worcestershire was thrown into doubt in March when he walked off the field during the Lions’ One-Day Cup final, with seven overs still remaining, to catch a flight to England without having secured the required No-Objection Certificate.

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The Lions terminated his contract as a result, and Cricket South Africa charged him with a Level 4 offence for bringing the game into disrepute, a case that remained unresolved even after he was eventually cleared to play for Worcestershire in April.

Despite the disruption, Swanepoel made a strong impact across formats this season, playing in eight Division Two matches and also featuring in the Vitality T20 Blast and Metro Bank One Day Cup. He scored an unbeaten 63 against Lancashire and took 31 Division Two wickets, including a season-best 5-65 against Gloucestershire.

Mir, who returns for a second spell of red-ball cricket at Worcestershire, will be available from Tuesday’s Division Two fixture against Northamptonshire through to the end of the season.

AFRICA PICKS: Cricket tips and predictions

Beyers Swanepoel has returned to South Africa to attend to matters relating to his domestic cricket commitments.

We’d like to thank Beyers for his efforts throughout his time as a Pear, in what has been a highly impressive campaign for the South African.

Find out who will… pic.twitter.com/qFs36pFCE3

— Worcestershire CCC (@WorcsCCC) September 7, 2026

Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

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NAIROBI, Kenya, September 7, 2026 – Two-time world marathon champion Abel Kirui has warned Sabastian Sawe that his world record in the men’s 42km is under threat from Yomilf Kejelcha.

Kirui believes that the Ethiopian could smash Sawe’s record sooner rather than later, judging by his recent performances.

“I thought that it would be quite a while before the world record could be broken but I’d warn Sawe to start working on how he can lower it again. The Ethiopian guy (Kejelcha) is not far behind; he recently broke the world record in the 21km. My heart is not settled…we are not safe,” the 44-year-old said.

Sawe will be all too conscious of Kirui’s warning about Kejelcha who he faced at this year’s London Marathon in April, on which occasion both men became the first ever to run 42km under two hours.

The Kenyan clocked a world record of 1:59:30 but Kejelcha was not too far off behind, running 1:59:41 to finish second.

Having clocked 56:51 at last month’s Buenos Aires Half Marathon to become the fastest man in the distance, Kejelcha will have his eyes trailed on the 42km to usurp Sawe as the world record holder.

Sawe would have had the opportunity to lower his record in the near future but for an injury that ruled him out of next month’s Berlin Marathon.

As far as Kirui is concerned, it is not only Sawe’s record that worries him but also the emergence of minnows in the middle and long-distance races, which have for long been a staple of Kenya.

The Olympic silver medalist believes the fact that such countries, including New Zealand, Australia and France, are performing well in international competitions is symptomatic of a major problem in Kenya’s case — which needs introspection.

“We need to change our tactics and not rely on the ones we have been used to. You saw how Australia performed at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. We need to invest in better training facilities, gym facilities…supplements for better recovery. Also, if we don’t embrace technology then we will be overtaken,” Kirui said.

‘Patience is the password’

Kirui also delved into the mass migration of young athletes to the road races without transiting through the track races.

He advised such athletes to take baby steps in their athletics career, noting that patience is the password to unlocking success in athletics.

“They should not be in a hurry, they should prepare and build themselves gradually. The money has increased, yes…the money earned by the likes of Paul Tergat is not the same as that of Eliud Kipchoge and Sawe. Money will always be there so they should take their time, transitioning through track races so they can survive for long in the game,” Kirui said.

The 2008 Vienna City Marathon champion was among hundreds who ran at the sixth edition of the Strathmore Annual Run in the Upper hill area of Nairobi on Saturday morning.

The event sought to raise awareness and funds towards a scholarship initiative for needy students in the institution.

He praised the initiative, noting it as a lesson on how sports can help raise the standard of life for many underprivileged people.

“I think this is one of the ways through which athletes can give back to the community. It may not be much but even that 2 per cent is enough to make a huge difference to somebody’s life when combined with similar contributions from others,” Kirui said.

Categories of competition included 21km, 10km, 5km and the 2.5km fun run.

The Springboks 2-1 home series triumph against the All Blacks has drawn a remarkably consistent verdict from New Zealand’s leading rugby voices: South Africa are the benchmark and their power game is unlike anything else in Test rugby.

And, when the pressure was greatest, the world champions imposed themselves on the All Blacks.

The Springboks have won the South African leg of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 2-1 and the message from New Zealand is not that the All Blacks were disgraced, exposed or hopeless.

It is that the Boks were better.

And, more significantly, that the Springboks remain the team every other nation is chasing.

The All Blacks won 33-16 at Ellis Park, but South Africa responded 33-26 in Cape Town and 29-24 at FNB Stadium to ensure New Zealand’s famed 1996 Incomparables remain the only All Blacks to have won a Test series in South Africa.

The reaction in New Zealand has focused heavily on what the All Blacks need to improve, but within that analysis has been an emphatic acknowledgement of the quality of Rassie Erasmus’s Springboks.

Stuff.co.nz’s Marc Hinton was unequivocal.

When it mattered, he wrote, the Springboks were “too big, too strong and too flaming good”.

Hinton described the Soweto victory as another “clinical, classical, pressure-packed performance” from the back-to-back world champions and said it demonstrated exactly why South Africa remain the side everyone else is chasing.

That was the theme across the Kiwi analysis.

This was not simply about the Boks having bigger forwards. It was about how efficiently South Africa turned their physical advantages into points.

Stuff’s Ross Karl broke down the sequence that has become so brutally effective.

The scrum creates the penalty. The penalty creates the lineout. The lineout creates the maul. And the maul creates the try.

The All Blacks know it is coming. They just haven’t been able to stop it.

Karl highlighted that nine of the Boks’ 12 scrum penalties in the three Tests have come on South Africa’s feed.

When the All Blacks put the ball into the scrum, they have increasingly looked to get it out quickly. When the Boks feed, they are prepared to keep the ball at No 8, feel New Zealand retreat and then turn the scrum into an attacking weapon.

South Africa won five scrum penalties in Soweto.

The most devastating expression of that forward superiority, however, came from Malcolm Marx’s try following a 25-metre maul.

Karl called it one of the defining moments of the Test because it was about much more than seven points.

It created a sense of helplessness.

Once South Africa got the game into the area in which they are strongest, New Zealand could not reliably get out.

That is a huge compliment to this Bok team.

Gregor Paul, writing for the New Zealand Herald, went even further in assessing South Africa’s power game.

Paul argued that every team in world rugby will struggle with it because the Boks are producing physical power “at a scale previously never seen”.

But his most telling assessment concerned the fundamental battle of styles that has made this series so compelling.

The Springboks have built their game around power and the All Blacks around athleticism. South Africa want to dominate the set piece and New Zealand want space. The Boks have heavier, square, immensely powerful forwards, while New Zealand favour lighter and more explosive athletes.

One wants to squeeze. The other wants to stretch.

Paul described it as rugby chess and, after 240 minutes in South Africa, said there could be no argument about which team had imposed its identity for longer.

The answer was definitively the Springboks.

That conclusion matters more than the 2-1 scoreline.

The All Blacks have played some spectacular rugby in the series. They have repeatedly found width against South Africa’s aggressive defensive system and in Soweto produced 12 line breaks and 11 offloads compared with the Boks’ six line breaks and one offload.

Yet the Boks won.

Why?

Because South Africa are comfortable being uncomfortable.

Liam Napier, also writing in the New Zealand Herald, noted that much had been made of the All Blacks’ fitness and their supposed advantage at altitude after they dominated the final 20 minutes of the opening two Tests by an aggregate 26-3.

In Soweto, that script was shredded.

The Boks dominated the second half.

Their defence swarmed, their forwards rumbled and the penalties started flowing. Instead of New Zealand running South Africa off their feet in the final quarter, it was the All Blacks who found themselves on the ropes.

The Springboks’ ability to defend when apparently beaten has also earned significant praise.

Karl wrote that South Africa deserved “enormous credit” for their scramble defence, repeatedly recovering from situations that would probably have produced tries against other teams.

That is important because New Zealand’s attack has been good.

The All Blacks are making breaks. They are finding space. They are moving the Bok defence around.

They simply have not converted enough of those opportunities because the Springboks refuse to die defensively.

And when momentum changes, South Africa punish teams with a brutality few can match.

Hinton identified the Bok midfield of Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende as outstanding in Soweto, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu combining control and creativity.

Kurt-Lee Arendse and replacement Manie Libbok were influential, but the foundation came from Malcolm Marx, Jasper Wiese, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Ox Nche.

Hinton’s assessment was simple: the Bok pack won its battles and provided a brilliant platform.

The same respect came from former All Blacks Brad Weber, Angus Ta’avao and Mils Muliaina on Sky Sport’s The Breakdown.

Ta’avao, a 22-Test All Black prop, called South Africa’s scrum the best in the world and stressed that the Boks do not approach a scrum hoping for parity.

They attack it to dominate.

Former All Blacks scrumhalf Weber said New Zealand’s challenge was to keep the ball alive and attempt to run the Boks off their feet. Every handling mistake that gives South Africa another scrum simply invites the world champions back into their preferred form of combat.

And Muliaina made perhaps the most important observation of all.

South Africa do not mind pressure.

They absorb it.

The All Blacks have shown in these three Tests that the gap between the teams is not enormous. At Ellis Park they punished an inaccurate South Africa ruthlessly. In Cape Town they stayed alive until the finish. At FNB Stadium they created more line breaks and attacked with ambition.

But this series has also shown the difference between threatening the champions and displacing them.

The Boks have a scrum that can destroy you, a lineout that rarely gives the ball away, a maul capable of marching 25 metres, a defence that can recover when broken and a playing group conditioned by years of winning the biggest moments in the biggest Tests.

They also know exactly who they are.

The New Zealand media’s verdict after three Tests reflects that reality.

The All Blacks are improving.

The Springboks are still the standard.

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Victor Matfield says Manie Libbok is the Springboks’ go-to flyhalf if they want to “open it up” against the All Blacks in Baltimore on Saturday.

Libbok was thrust into the third Test at FNB Stadium in the ninth minute when fullback Cheslin Kolbe suffered a broken jaw.

Starting flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu shifted to 15 after returning from an early stint in the sin bin, allowing Libbok to continue at 10 as the world champions claimed a 29-24 victory to take a 2-1 series lead into Saturday’s finale in the USA.

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Speaking on the Rugby Rivals podcast, Matfield said Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who has started all three Tests of the series at flyhalf, is experiencing a more challenging period after an outstanding 2025 Test campaign.

“Sacha has the X factor, he’s going through that second-year syndrome when the first year everything just worked, whereas now he has to work for it.”

Feinberg-Mngomezulu was yellow-carded for a deliberate knock-on at FNB Stadium, but the former Bok lock was encouraged by his contribution at fullback in the second half.

“He really stepped up, even though he was at 15. Those kicks he had to make and his physicality on defence is unbelievable.”

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But if the Boks want to unleash their attack in Baltimore, Matfield believes Libbok offers something different.

“In Manie we’ve got a 10 that if you want to open it up, I think he’s probably the best,” he said.

“He loves to call for the ball, he loves to get width on attack and we scored both of our tries with him giving those long passes to the outside.”

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Despite that endorsement, Matfield still expects Feinberg-Mngomezulu to remain the Boks’ first-choice flyhalf.

“He just needs to work through this second-year syndrome,” he said. “That always happens because the expectation is so high of him to just go out there and do magic.

“I think he will need to learn how to build pressure and when the opportunity comes, you take it, because he’s got all the skills for that.”

The Springbok team for the fourth Test will be named at 8pm (SA time) on Monday.

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Photo: Floris van Schouwenburg/Gallo Images

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