The Champions League returned to action and the European continental competition par excellence continues to advance in its group stage. Koeman’s Barça faces a very important game against Dynamo Kiev on matchday 3. The Blaugranas arrive at the appointment with 0 points after lose against Bayern and Benfica and they need to beat the Ukrainians to avoid getting into more trouble. One of the peculiarities of the encounter is that It will be played at 6:45 p.m. an unusual schedule in the competition and in Spain.
Three years ago, the UEFA decided to end the usual Champions League schedule: 8:45 p.m. Although it was difficult to get used to the fact that the games did not start at that time, the new ones are still running. The main novelty was that they introduced two time bands. On each day of the Champions League, there were four matches that were played at 6:55 p.m.. The remaining twelve were ‘delayed’ until 9:00 p.m.
However, the highest football organization in Europe has decided to change the schedules again. This time minimally. The format remains the same and most of the matches continue to be played at 9:00 p.m. But those who used to start at 6:55 p.m. now do so ten minutes earlier, that is, at 6:45 p.m.. And Barça will do it against Dinamo Kiev at the Camp Nou.
Why are Champions League matches played at 6:45 p.m.?
In 2017, UEFA decided to change the usual schedule with the aim of not bringing all the games together in one time slot and be able to better distribute the television market for audiovisual rights and commercial. Thus, incidentally, the meetings of Eastern European teams could be placed earlier with a different time slot than the central one and with greater problems to play at 9:00 p.m. In the statement issued by UEFA, no reasons were specified, they only assured that “more games than ever will be able to be seen thanks to the new schedules: 18:55 CET and 21:00 CET”.
Nevertheless, In the General Assembly held in 2019 they changed the schedules again and advance those that started at 6:55 p.m. by 10 minutes. This is how the 6:45 p.m. strip was born. As in the first change, UEFA did not give any reason beyond that those hours allowed to see more games, but the most reasonable thing is that starting at 18:55 it was possible that the end of these encounters is overlapped with the beginning of those at 9:00 p.m. Now, despite the fact that it can be lengthened a lot, it is almost impossible.
In this edition, 28 of the 32 teams They will play at least one group stage match at 6:45 p.m. In some cases, such as Salzburg or Wolfsburg, it will be up to 3 of the 6 in the first phase.. Manchester City and Dortmund, among others, will play twice at that time. In the case of the Spanish, all except Atlético de Madrid will play a game at 6:45 p.m. The mattress team, the Liverpool, the Benfica and the Little they are the only ones who will not test that time slot. Barça will do it on Wednesday the 20th against Dinamo; Real Madrid on Wednesday November 3 against Shakhtar Donetsk.