THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE STARTS TODAY AND MOURINHO GETS INTER FIRST

The Champions League starts today. Tuesday, September 8, 2026, six games on the opening night, eighteen by Thursday, and every one of the 36 teams plays once before the week is out. The first ball rolls at 12:45 PM Eastern in Athens and Bruges, the main slate kicks off at 3 PM Eastern, and the fixture everybody circled the day the draw came out sits at the bottom of the list: Real Madrid against Inter at the Bernabéu, with José Mourinho on the Madrid bench facing the club he won the treble with sixteen years ago.

Mourinho Gets Inter on Night One

Mourinho left Inter for Real Madrid in the summer of 2010, a few weeks after Inter beat Bayern 2 to 0 in the final at the Santiago Bernabéu. That night gave Inter its first European Cup since 1965 and made it the first Italian club to win the treble. He then spent three seasons in Madrid and left without the one trophy he was hired to deliver. Now he is back in the job, the competition opens in his stadium, and the draw handed him Inter in game one.

He does not get a full squad for it. Eduardo Camavinga, Arda Güler and Bernardo Silva are suspended, bans carried over from last season's European campaign. Éder Militão, Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy and Raúl Asencio are injured. Madrid also walks in off a loss, 1 to 0 at Real Betis on Friday, where Troy Parrott scored his first goal for Betis and Kylian Mbappé missed a late penalty. Inter is without Federico Dimarco, who has a knee injury.

The history still leans toward the home side. Madrid has won 10 of the 19 meetings between the clubs, Inter 7, and Inter has not beaten Madrid since 1998. Opta's model gives Madrid a 56 percent chance of winning tonight and Inter 22.3 percent.

Porto Has Never Beaten City

Porto against Manchester City at the Estádio do Dragão is the other 3 PM game with real weight. Porto is back in the Champions League proper for the first time since 2023/24, as Primeira Liga champion, on a Portuguese record 28th campaign in the competition. Francesco Farioli is coaching his first Champions League match, and his team arrives on a winning run with one goal conceded all season.

City comes in off a 1 to 0 win over Coventry on Saturday, Erling Haaland scoring the 300th goal of his career. Haaland has 34 Champions League goals for City, two behind Sergio Agüero's club record of 36, so the record could fall before October. Porto has never beaten City in four competitive meetings: three City wins, one draw, ten goals to two.

Tonight's Six, in Eastern Time

- AEK Athens vs LASK, 12:45 PM
- Club Brugge vs Aston Villa, 12:45 PM
- Borussia Dortmund vs Villarreal, 3 PM
- Porto vs Manchester City, 3 PM
- Lille vs Real Betis, 3 PM
- Real Madrid vs Inter, 3 PM

Aston Villa is back in the competition after a season in the Europa League. LASK is one of four clubs playing in the league phase for the first time. Every game this week is played with the metallic white ball adidas released two weeks ago, the one with the stars hidden in fog.

Wednesday Brings Napoli and Arsenal, Thursday Brings United

Wednesday opens at 12:45 PM Eastern with Barcelona vs Feyenoord and Stuttgart vs Viking, then Liverpool vs Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint Germain vs Slovan Bratislava, Sporting vs Galatasaray and Napoli vs Arsenal at 3 PM. Bukayo Saka turned 25 on Saturday with 300 Arsenal appearances behind him, and Naples is his first stop of the European season.

Thursday: Fenerbahçe vs Roma and PSV Eindhoven vs Shakhtar Donetsk at 12:45 PM, then Como vs Leipzig, Bayern vs Bodø/Glimt, Manchester United vs Sabah and Slavia Praha vs Lens at 3 PM. United is back after two years away, on a schedule that includes a rematch of the 1999 final against Bayern. Sabah, the champion of Azerbaijan, beat Hapoel Beer Sheva 6 to 4 on aggregate to get here. Como, fourth in Serie A last season under Cesc Fàbregas, has never played in the competition. Viking won its first Norwegian title in 34 years in 2025 and joins Bodø/Glimt as the second Norwegian club in the field.

Every one of those debuts gets marked in a new way this season. A patch is cut from the shirt of any player making his first Champions League appearance and sealed into a single one of one card, a program UEFA and Fanatics announced last week. Thursday alone could produce dozens of them.

Thirty Six Teams, Eight Games Each, Madrid in June

The format is the same single table introduced two seasons ago. 36 teams, eight games each, four at home and four away, no groups. Matchday 2 arrives on October 13 and 14, and the league phase closes with every game played at once on January 27, 2027. The top eight go straight to the round of 16. Teams finishing ninth through 24th play a home and away knockout playoff on February 16 and 17 and February 23 and 24 for the remaining eight places.

The final is Saturday, June 5, 2027, at the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid. So the season opens at the Bernabéu tonight and ends across town nine months later, the kind of symmetry Mourinho will pretend not to have noticed.

Prediction: Madrid beats Inter by a single goal, Haaland scores in Porto, and the club record he is chasing falls before the October window closes.