Which football clubs are close neighbours but in different countries?

“Watching Bayern Munich play Salzburg last night got me wondering: what professional teams are the closest to each other but are in different countries?” wonders David Gough. “And which are the closest never to play each other?”

It’s around 130km from Bayern’s Allianz Arena to the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg – a pretty convenient trip for border-hopping away fans but by no means the shortest.

Let’s begin our jaunt around the close neighbours divided by international borders in northern Europe. Denmark’s FC Copenhagen took on Sweden’s Malmö in the 2019-20 Champions League with the teams having to travel just 43km across the Øresund Bridge to get to the away leg.

The Fortuna Sittard Stadion in the Netherlandsm– home of, um, Fortuna Sittard – is a mere 32.4km from Alemannia Aachen’s New Tivoli Stadium across the border in Germany, while it’s a 30.5km scenic trip between Swiss top-flight action at FC Lugano’s Stadio Cornaredo and Serie C fare at Como 1907’s Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia in northern Italy.

Just 29km separate Lille’s Stade Pierre Mauroy to KV Kortrijk’s Guldensporen Stadion in Belgium. Meanwhile, Trieste and Koper sit side by side at the top of the Istrian peninsula but the former is in Italy, the latter in Slovenia. FC Koper’s Stadion Bonifika plays host to top-flight football while Triestina, founder members of Serie A in 1929-30, currently play in Serie C at the Stadio Nereo Rocco around 15.5km away. The sides often meet in pre-season friendlies.

The best we can find in Europe are two lower-level teams separated by a cross-border walk of 3.1km, taking about 10 minutes. Third-tier Finnish side TP-47 play their home games at Pohjan Stadion in Tornio, with Sweden’s sixth-tier Haparanda FF just across the