The Longest Away Day in Football

The longest away day in football can be found in Russia’s second tier of football. 

Often, teams don’t have to travel too far to play their matches. Manchester United and Manchester City are only 6.4 km apart from one another, while only a park separates Liverpool and Everton. Then, in Argentina, Independiente and Racing Club are located directly beside each other.

But what is the longest away day in football?

What Is the Longest Away Day in Football?

The longest away day in football is FC Baltika vs FC SKA-Khabarovsk.

FC Baltika, having been relegated from the Russian Premier League this season, will see them facing all teams in the Russian Division 1, including a team so far away there’s an EIGHT-hour time difference. 

FC Baltika is the most western professional football club in all of Russia. They play in the Russian enclave of Kalingrad. 

Russia owns land in Kalingrad, but it is not actually part of the country. It can be found right in between modern-day Lithuania and Poland. FC SKA-Khabarovsk just so happens to be the most eastern professional football club in all of Russia, located in Khabarovsk.

The distance between the two clubs is incredible, being over 7400 km (about 4598.15 mi).

How Far Exactly Is It to Travel to the Longest Away Day in Football?

This would be an astonishing distance to travel for a 0-0 draw or to sit on the bench all game. 

This would take 124 hours (about 5 days) of non-stop driving, providing good traffic, and would also cost you a pretty penny for all that petrol and paying tolls—there’s no way you can tell Google Maps to avoid tolls for this long of a trip. 

It would be 85 days (about 3 months) of non-stop walking or probably three days of running if you are the Hardest Geezer. 

Another option is public transportation via three different trains, which would take around eight whole days. 

Finally, probably the only sane option of travelling all this way for a football game, if there is anyone sane that would want to do this, is by plane. Unfortunately, there aren’t actually any direct flights from Kalingrad to Khabarovsk, so you would have to get a flight to Moscow from Kalingrad, which is about 3 hours and then change flights and fly another 8 hours to Khabarovsk. 

These two clubs being in the same league is the equivalent of a team from China or the MLS being in the English Premier League. Manchester United vs. Inter Miami or Chelsea vs. Beijing Guoan would be interesting.

I can’t say for sure that Chelsea aren’t actually playing Beijing in the Conference League though so we might actually get to see that, and Jackson might still underperform his X.G. 

The last time this game took place was on March 2023 which saw the home team of Baltika get a 2-0 win. The last time this fixture saw a 0-0 draw was 2020 so add to the other fantastic things to happen that year. 

One fan made the long and expensive trip to support his beloved FC Baltika back in 2010 to watch them play SKA-Khabarovsk in which he saw his team suffer a 1-0 defeat. 

The fan was tracked down and thanked by the players and coaches for his support, however for travelling all that way and watching my team lose, I would expect a statue of me to be erected in front of the stadium and to be in the starting XI the next game as an apology/thank you. 

This probably isn’t a fixture that I would travel for, but perhaps there are others out there who would…

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ReeceClinton

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