There’s not a whole lot you can do about geography – sometimes, two places are just very far apart.
And that’s a fact often brought into sharp focus in football, not least in some of the world’s bigger countries.
Here, we’ve picked out a selection of the most extreme away days on the planet…
Juventus vs Catania (Italy – 648 miles)
Coming from Turin in Italy’s north-east, Juventus can face some pretty long trips without leaving the mainland.
But when Catania are in the same league, Juve have to travel that little bit further – to the east coast of Sicily, whose other two biggest clubs, Palermo and Messina, have also spent time in Serie A.
Lille vs Ajaccio (France – 660 miles)
You can get the Eurostar from Lille to London in just over an hour; it takes a bit longer to travel from the city near the Belgian border to the capital of Corsica.
Ajaccio were the first Corsican club to play in the French top flight and have had plenty of encounters over the years with Lille, who won their fourth Ligue 1 title in 2021.
Goztepe vs Caykur Rizespor (Turkey – 732 miles)
Champions of Turkey back in 1950, Goztepe hail from the west-coast city of Izmir, the third-biggest urban area in the country.
Just about their longest regular away day in the Turkish Super Lig takes them to Rize on the Black Sea coast, a couple of hours’ drive from the border with Georgia and home to Caykur Rizespor.
Bryne vs Tromso (Norway – 850 miles)
Situated at opposite ends of Norway, Bryne and Tromso are both former Norwegian Cup winners and have spent many seasons in the top flight, the Eliteserien.
Bryne is actually closer to the UK than it is to Tromso, which lies further north than Iceland and is one of the largest cities inside the Arctic Circle.
Avispa Fukuoka vs Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (Japan – 874 miles)
Avispa Fukuoka hail from the second-most southerly of Japan’s four main islands, Kyushu, while Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo call the most northerly, Hokkaido, home.
Driving between the two takes more than a day, so we’d imagine that the teams head to the airport when having to make just about the longest journey in the J.League.
Santa Clara vs Porto (Portugal – 938 miles)
Look at a typical map of Europe and you won’t see the Azores – but the archipelago out in the North Atlantic Ocean is part of Portugal.
When they were promoted to the Primeira Liga for the first time in the late 90s, Santa Clara became the most westerly top-flight club in Europe. They’re based a touch over 900 miles from the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and even further from Porto.
Huachipato vs Deportes Iquique (Chile – 1,154 miles)
On average, Chile is only around 110 miles wide – but it stretches over 2,500 miles from north to south.
The skinny South American nation’s geography makes for some long old away trips in its top flight, the Primera Division, with Huachipato – champions as recently as 2023 – and multiple Copa Chile winners Deportes Iquique just over 24 hours apart by road from south to north.
Atyrau vs Elimai (Kazakhstan – 1,303 miles)
Being the top flight in the world’s ninth-largest country, the Kazakhstan Premier League features a fair amount of travel.
Perhaps the most extreme example is that of Atyrau and Elimai – the latter of whom won three titles during the 90s – situated in the west and the north-east of the former Soviet republic respectively.
Tenerife vs Barcelona (Spain – 1,367 miles)
Spain’s Canary Islands, lying 60 miles or so off the coast of Morocco, are home to two clubs who’ve spent a number of seasons in LaLiga: Las Palmas of Gran Canaria and the even more distant Tenerife.
For the latter, it’s a flight of more than three hours to Barcelona (not that anywhere on the Spanish mainland is close).
Kerala Blasters vs Punjab (India – 1,433 miles)
Home to almost 1.5 billion people, India is the most populous country in the world; it’s also one of the biggest by area, and Indian Super League clubs are dotted all around.
Among them are Kerala Blasters and Punjab, hailing from Kochi in the south-west and Mohali in the north-west respectively.
Tijuana vs Puebla (Mexico – 1,492 miles)
The city of Tijuana straddles the Mexico-USA border, forming part of the same urban area as San Diego on the other side.
It’s almost as far north in Mexico as you can get, making for an epic trip when Puebla, from Puebla de Zaragoza to the south-east of the national capital, Mexico City, hit the road (or take to the skies) to face Tijuana – whose great badge features the Xoloitzcuintle hairless dog.
Yunnan Yukun vs Changchun Yatai (China – 1,863 miles)
Almost all of China’s 1 billion-plus population resides east of the Heihe-Tengchong line, an imaginary line splitting the country roughly in two; likewise, every club in the 2025 Chinese Super League was based east of the line. Even so, the nation is so vast that this near 2,000-mile away day exists.
Yunnan Yukun became the first club from the southern province of Yunnan to reach the top level of Chinese football when they were promoted in 2024, while Changchun Yatai from Jilin province in the north-east won the 2007 title.
Vancouver Whitecaps vs Houston Dynamo (Canada / USA – 1,979 miles)
Featuring clubs from two of the largest nations on Earth, MLS makes for some epic away days – even with the league divided into Eastern and Western Conferences.
Canada’s Vancouver Whitecaps and the USA’s Houston Dynamo both play in the Eastern Conference, but it’s a flight of just over four-and-a-half hours between the two cities (or a 37-hour drive…).
Internacional vs Fortaleza (Brazil – 1,997 miles)
Winners of the 2006 Club World Cup, former Brazilian and South American champions Internacional are based in the southern city of Porto Alegre.
It's nearly 2,000 miles from there to Fortaleza in the north-east of South America’s biggest country, one which boasts an area of more than 3 million square miles.
Perth Glory vs Wellington Phoenix (Australia / New Zealand – 3,266 miles)
Perth Glory and Wellington Phoenix are the two clubs situated the furthest apart in the A-League, and they face off in the ‘Distance Derby’.
Among the most isolated major cities on the planet, Western Australian capital Perth is a flight of over nine hours from Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
Zenit Saint Petersburg vs Luch Vladivostok (Russia – 4,061 miles)
It takes more than 11 hours to fly from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok, an important port city on Russia’s Pacific coast less than 30 miles from the border with China.
Local club Luch played in the Russian Premier League from 2006 to 2008, and it was then that three hardy Zenit Saint Petersburg fans decided to go on an epic adventure: they made the outrageously long trip by road, which the ever-reliable Google Maps tells us takes… almost six days! And what happened when they got there? Their car broke down, meaning they had to take the train back.
