Viking beat Sabah 4–1 at Lyse Arena in Stavanger on Champions League Matchday 4 (Wed 4 Nov 2026) — a night that looked like it was going the wrong way for 16 minutes and ended as a first in the club's history. The Norwegian champions trailed to an 11th-minute counterattack goal, then scored four unanswered, Erik Botheim bookending the comeback, to win a Champions League game for the first time — against fellow debutants who finished the night with ten men.
Both clubs are playing the first Champions League campaign in their history, and both arrived still chasing a foothold in the league phase. Viking had taken a single point from their first three matches, a 3–3 draw with Bayern Munich the highlight of a run that also brought defeat at Aston Villa. Sabah already had a win in the book — 2–0 over Slavia Praha on Matchday 2 — but had been beaten 4–0 at Old Trafford on the opening night and 2–1 by Borussia Dortmund in their last European outing. Something had to give in Stavanger, and for a while it looked like it would be the home side's defence. Sabah are a club in a hurry, too: founded only in 2017, they won their first Azerbaijani title last season to end Qarabağ's long dominance of the league, then came through all four qualifying rounds in the summer to reach this stage — the first club ever to do it in a debut European campaign.
The visitors struck first. On 11 minutes Orphé M'Bina finished a quick counterattack, teed up by Umarali Rakhmonaliev, to put the Azerbaijani debutants ahead and stun the home crowd. Viking's answer came on 27 minutes: Kristoffer Haugen set up Erik Botheim, who knocked the equaliser in with his lower leg, and the sides went in level at the break. It was the goal that changed the temperature of the night — from there on, the pressure ran almost entirely one way.
Botheim headed off target two minutes after the restart as Viking picked up where they had left off, and the game turned for good midway through the half. On 69 minutes Stas Pokatilov saved Zlatko Tripić's penalty, but the Viking captain reacted quickest and tapped in the rebound himself for 2–1. Eight minutes later the tie slipped further from Sabah: Aden McCarthy was dismissed on 77 minutes, the red card leaving the visitors to chase the game a man down for the closing stages. It completed a miserable passage for the South African defender, who had been named in Bafana Bafana's preliminary squad for this month's AFCON 2027 qualifiers against Kenya.
Viking made the extra man count within four minutes of the dismissal. Henrik Falchener headed in Tripić's corner on 81 minutes to make it 3–1, and in stoppage time Botheim struck again — a deflected second goal, assisted by Peter Christiansen at 90'+4', the substitute's pass completing the brace and sparking the celebrations in the stands.
There is history folded into the result. Viking's European story stretches back decades — seven previous European Cup campaigns, every one of them ending in the first round, the last of them in 1992 against Barcelona — but the club had never won a game in the competition before this night. That it came in a league phase that did not exist in those days, against another club writing its own first chapter, made the celebrations at Lyse Arena entirely understandable.
UEFA named Botheim Player of the Match — the equaliser and the clincher on the night his club broke its Champions League duck. The numbers backed the scoreline: Viking edged possession 51–49 and out-shot Sabah 21–16, with eight efforts on target to four. Two of those efforts belonged to the captain — a saved penalty and its rebound — and Tripić finished the night with a goal and an assist.
The win is Viking's first-ever in the Champions League, in the club's debut campaign, and it lifts them to 22nd in the league-phase table with four points from four matches (W1 D1 L2) — inside the play-off places with four matchdays still to play. Sabah, also debutants in the competition, drop to 31st with three points, outside the places that keep a European season alive in the spring. Next up, Viking travel to Atlético de Madrid while Sabah host Barcelona, both on Matchday 5. After Madrid, Viking still face Napoli, Stuttgart, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord in a run that will decide whether this first win becomes a play-off run.
Every goal from Lyse Arena lives on the match's Game Center page.
