Real Betis v Nottingham Forest, Red Star Belgrade v Celtic: Europa League – live

September 25, 2025
2:15 am

Key events

Carabao Cup clockwatch

If you’d prefer a bit of domestic action tonight, Scott Murray is on Carabao Cup duty.

76 min: Midtjylland 1-0 Sturm Graz

The first goal of this season’s Europa League did not, alas, leave the Sturm Graz keeper Oliver Christensen drenched in glory. He saw an inswinging corner late and shovelled it miserably into his own net. That was after seven minutes; Midtjylland still lead 69 minutes later.

The other early game, between PAOK and Maccabi Tel Aviv, remains goalless.

Red Star Belgrade v Celtic team news

Brendan Rodgers made a heap of changes for the weekend’s League Cup quarter-final victory at Partick, so tonight’s XI is closer to the team he picked for the last league game, a nervy 2-1 win at Kilmarnock 10 days ago.

There are two changes from that side. Kieran Tierney and Yang Hyun-jun come in for Marcelo Saracchi and Michel-Ange Balikwisha.

Red Star’s team includes ageing funster Marko Arnautovic, once of Stoke and West Ham.

Red Star Belgrade (poss; 4-2-3-1) Matheus Magalhaes; Seol, Tebo Uchenna, Veljkovic, Tiknizyan; Handel, Elsnik; Radonjic, Duarte, Ivanic; Arnautovic.

Subs: Glazer, Gutesa, Bajo, Milson, Katai, Olayinka, Kostov,
Stankovic, Lekovic, Lucic, Zaric, Avdic.

Celtic (4-3-3) Schmeichel; Donovan, Carter-Vickers, Scales, Tierney; Nygren, McGregor, Hatate; Yang, Maeda, Tounekti.

Subs: Sinisalo, Doohan, Balikwisha, McCowan, Iheanacho, Kenny, Engels, Bernardo, Saracchi, Murray, Forrest, Ralston.

Referee Radu Petrescu.

Real Betis v Nottm Forest team news

Ange Postecoglou makes three changes to the Forest side that drew away to Burnley on Saturday. Ibrahim Sangare, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Igor Jesus replace Dan Ndoye, Dilane Bakwa and Chris Wood. Not sure what that means tactically, and I don’t care possibly a switch to 4-3-3 with Morgan Gibbs-White playing from the flank.

Real Betis, who sit eighth in La Liga, have some familiar faces in their side, including Antony, Junior Firpo, Sofyan Amrabat and Giovani Lo Celso.

Real Betis (4-2-3-1) Pau Lopez; Ortiz, Natan, Gomez, Firpo, Altimira, Amrabat; Antony, Lo Celso, Ezzalzouli; Bakambu.

Subs: Valles, Adrian, Fornals, Avila, Rodriguez, Riquelme, Hernandez, Roca, Ruibal, Morante, Garreta.

Nottm Forest (possible 4-3-3) Sels; Williams, Milenkovic, Morato, Zinchenko; Sangare, Douglas Luiz, Anderson; Gibbs-White, Igor Jesus, Hudson-Odoi.

Subs: John Victor, Wood, Ndoye, Kalimuendo, Dominguez, Yates, McAtee, Bakwa, Boly, Savona.

Referee Sascha Stegemann.

‘Klinsmann knows my name!’

It’s 19 March 1996. No really, folks, it is! To the astonishment of everyone apart from Fantasy Football League’s Statto, who tipped them months in advance, Sri Lanka have just won the cricket World Cup. Menswe@r are one of four Britpop or Britpop-adjacent bands in the top 10 of the charts. Nobody is using words like ‘Britpop-adjacent’ because they know it’ll lead to either ridicule or a bunch of fives.

Oh, and Nottingham Forest are facing Bayern Munich in the second leg of their Uefa Cup quarter-final. It would be their last game in Europe for 29 years – spoiler alert – and the ever excellent Ben Fisher has spoken to those involved.

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Ah, gowan.

Celtic are the other British side in action tonight. They face Red Star in Belgrade, a match they didn’t want to play. Nothing to do with Red Star, just the competition. Celtic hoped to be in the Champions League again – it’s only seven months since they gave Bayern Munich an almighty scare – but lost to Kairat Almaty in the third qualifying round.

Preamble

Hello, hello and welcome to the Guardian’s dedicated Europa League clockwatch. ~~All~~ Several eyes are on Estadio de La Cartuja in Seville, where Nottingham Forest will play Real Betis in their first European fixture since 1996. And they are managed by somebody who knows this competition intimately.

It’s rare to see a defence the Europa League in modern football, largely because – and you may not know this because it’s rarely discussed – the winners are rewarded with a place in the Champions League the following season.

The winning team, that is. The winning manager, Ange Postecoglou, was sacked by Spurs and has taken over from Nuno Espirito Santo, who left Nottingham Forest after well, you know. Big Ange’s presence adds another layer of every football writer’s favourite word, narrative, to Forest’s campaign.

For those who usually pay the Europa League no mind, the format is similar to the Champions League: an eight-game league phase, then a playoff, then the round of 16.

Here’s the full list of tonight’s games, with more to come tomorrow. All are 8pm kick-offs apart from the ones with (5.45pm) next to them.