Why Chelsea have hardest and Arsenal easiest Champions League trips
The exotic away trips offered by the Champions League are part of its appeal for supporters but they can come at a price for players, and in that respect Arsenal and Chelsea have been dealt wildly differing hands by this year’s competition.
Thursday’s draw for the league phase gave Arsenal trips to Inter Milan (for a second season in a row), Club Brugge, Sparta Prague and Athletic Bilbao. Not exactly off the beaten track for away fans seeking the thrill of a new city to visit, though plenty of opportunity to sample the beers of two brewing hotspots and the many culinary delights of Lombardy and the Basque Country.
It will also be welcome news for Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and his squad, who face total round trips of approximately 3775 miles from those four fixtures – the least of any of England’s six entrants to the Champions League this season.
Chelsea, by contrast, will travel almost 10,000 miles to and from their four away games, a figure skewed by a 5,000 mile round trip to face Qarabag in Baku.
Hardcore Blues will at least be familiar with Azerbaijan’s capital, which was the scene of their 2019 Europa League final triumph (coincidentally, against Arsenal). Manager Enzo Maresca will be happier with two short-haul trips to his native Italy, to play Atalanta and Napoli, and a jaunt to Munich to take on Bayern.
Newcastle and Spurs face short-haul trips
Liverpool and their fans have the next most arduous schedule, consisting of away games at Inter, Eintracht Frankfurt, Marseille and Galatasaray. Istanbul is the most adventurous destination for Reds, given the 3,500-mile round trip and their hosts’ penchant for pyrotechnics.
Manchester City will also travel more than 7,000 miles to and from their Champions League main phase away games. They include visits to the Arctic Circle to take on Bodo/Glimt and a return to Real Madrid, scene of one of their infamous semi-final defeat in 2022.
Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur have both been given relatively easy journeys of just over 4,000 miles each in total.
Three of the Magpies’ away games – Paris Saint-Germain, Bayer Leverkusen and Union Saint-Gilloise of Brussels – are round trips of under 1,000 miles, with Marseille the only exception and hardly an extreme undertaking for teams and fans alike.
Spurs have short hops to Paris, Frankfurt and Monaco as well as a more testing expedition to Norwegians Bodo, who are making their debut in the competition proper.
For Chelsea fans who jetted to the US for their triumphant Club World Cup campaign earlier this year, the draw means yet more travel – although at least they avoided being drawn away to Kairat Almaty, the Kazakh first-time qualifiers who are situated nearer to Beijing than Istanbul.