📅 September 7, 2026

Manchester United v Sabah: 1,003 Days Since the Last Champions League Game, Against a Club That Turned Nine on Tuesday

By Mav Jones · Manchester United fan writer

Manchester United play a Champions League match on Thursday for the first time in 1,003 days. The last one was 12 December 2023, a 0-1 home defeat to Bayern Munich that left United bottom of their group with four points, the worst group-stage return in the club’s history. The opponent this time is Sabah, from Baku, a club that was founded on 8 September 2017 and turned nine on Tuesday. Kick-off is 3 PM Eastern at Old Trafford, and it’s on Paramount+.

Michael Carrick said it himself on Friday, in the middle of defending his squad: “There was one competition and we need to do that an awful lot more this season.” Thursday is where the second competition starts, and it’s the first European match he’s managed.

Who Sabah are

Sabah are the youngest club ever to reach the league phase and only the second Azerbaijani side to get here after Qarabag, whose long run at the top of that league Sabah ended last season. They won their first Azerbaijan Premier League title in 2025/26 with 78 points from 33 games, 24 wins, 6 draws and 3 defeats, and added the Azerbaijan Cup for the second year running. The head coach is Valdas Dambrauskas, a Lithuanian appointed in June 2025 on a three-year contract. Their top scorer is Joy-Lance Mickels, 19 league goals and 28 in all competitions last season.

They didn’t back into this. Four qualifying rounds, eight games, six wins: The New Saints 4-1 on aggregate, KuPS 3-0, Aarhus 5-2, then Hapoel Be’er Sheva 6-4 after losing the first leg 2-1 in Israel and winning the second 5-2 after extra time in Baku on 25 August. The man to watch is Veljko Simic, who scored in six of Sabah’s first seven qualifiers, including the goal that opened the 4-0 second leg against Aarhus, a game Sabah won with 29 shots to 14 and 44 touches in the opposition box.

Two things about that run matter for Thursday. Every one of their home qualifiers was won without conceding a goal. Both of their defeats came away from home, at Aarhus and at Hapoel, and they conceded twice in each. This is a good side in Baku and a more beatable one on the road, and Old Trafford is about as far from Baku as the road gets.

The selection question, and it’s Sesko

This is the first of four games in ten days: Sabah on Thursday, the derby on Sunday, Brighton in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, Fulham away the Sunday after. Carrick has to pick a team for Thursday with Manchester City three days away, and the honest way to do that is to give the Champions League to the players who need games and keep the derby eleven fresh.

That starts with Benjamin Sesko. Three substitute appearances this season, one goal, no starts, and a coach who says he’s “letting him grow into the season”. He scored eighteen minutes after coming on at Everton. A home game against a side that has never played at this level, with a fully fit week behind him, is exactly the start he’s been waiting for, and it settles nothing about Sunday either way.

Mason Mount was in a matchday squad for the first time this season on Sunday and didn’t get on. An hour on Thursday is the sensible way to use him. Andrey Santos started at Hull and has had six minutes since. Joshua Zirkzee hasn’t played a minute. Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven are both registered for Europe and both need football. Kobbie Mainoo played 84 minutes at Everton and was the best passer on the pitch, so he’s the one midfielder Carrick might want to protect for Sunday rather than start twice in four days.

The unknowns are Marcus Rashford, who came off at Everton because he was “just feeling a bit of something” in Carrick’s words, and the absentees, which haven’t changed: Amad, Baleba, de Ligt and Ugarte are all out, with Baleba targeting the Brighton game on the 16th. Carrick’s Wednesday press conference settled Rashford: he trained in front of the cameras.

The number that matters more than the result

Goal difference is the first tiebreaker in the league-phase table, ahead of goals scored. In a 36-team table where six or seven clubs finish on the same points, the margin against the weakest opponent on the list is worth more than any single result against a strong one. Our projection for the eight games had United finishing in the top eight and going straight to the round of 16, and it assumed a 4-0 here. A 1-0 on Thursday would be three points and a problem stored for January.

The counter-argument is that Sabah don’t stop scoring. Pre-match stats have them scoring in 14 consecutive matches in all competitions, 18 goals in their last six, and Simic in the form of his life. United have conceded six in three league games, two of them in stoppage time. A clean sheet would be the first of the season in any competition.

How to watch in the United States

• Kick-off: Thursday 10 September, 3 PM Eastern, 12 PM Pacific. 8 PM in the UK.
• Streaming: Paramount+. CBS Sports holds the US rights to every Champions League match and streams all of them live on Paramount+, so this one needs no TV login.
• The rest of the league phase: Atletico Madrid away on 13 October, Como away on the 21st, Roma at home on 3 November, Sporting away on the 25th, Leipzig at home on 8 December, then Bayern at home on 20 January and Villarreal away a week later. Every kick-off in Eastern time is on the schedule page, or add all of them to your calendar and they’ll show in your own time zone.

The full US watch guide has the prices and which service carries which competition.

Prediction

United 3-0. Sesko starts and scores, the midfield keeps the ball for long enough that Sabah’s counter never gets going, and the only tension is whether the fourth goal arrives before the substitutions do. If the defence gives up a set piece or a shot from distance again, the Sunday conversation starts early.

Sources: Sabah’s history, honours, coach and stadium from the club’s Wikipedia entry and Goal’s profile (25 Aug 2026); 2025/26 record and Mickels’ goals from the 2025/26 season record. Qualifying results, the home and away split and Simic’s scoring run from UEFA.com’s play-off facts article (which refuses automated fetches, so it is not linked) (written before the second leg, so “six of seven” is through the first leg against Hapoel) and Sofascore’s report on the Aarhus second leg (11 Aug 2026). The 14-match scoring streak and 18 goals in six are from pre-match statistical previews and are not independently verified. United’s 2023/24 group record from the season record; 1,003 days counted from 12 December 2023 to 10 September 2026. Carrick’s quotes from his Everton press conference and ESPN’s post-match report (6 Sep 2026). US broadcast per CBS Sports’ rights deal. Two sources give different capacities for Sabah’s home ground (8,969 and 13,000); it isn’t cited here. Accurate as of 7 September 2026, before Carrick’s Wednesday press conference.