Igor Pajac is the UEFA-elected referee to whistle the League of Champions match between Lens and Sporting. Croat has crossed paths with Portugal four times throughout his career and the result has always been victory.
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11/10/2026
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A UEFA announced, in the form of a statement issued through official platforms early this Sunday morning, that Igor Pajac is the man chosen to whistle the meeting of the second round of the League of Champions league league, which will put, face to face, Lens and Sporting.
The natural judge of Zagreb will lead an almost exclusively Croatian team, composed by assistants Bojan Zobenica and Ivan Mihalj, the fourth referee Dario Bel and VAR Ivan Bebek. The only exception will be Polish Tomasz Kwiatkowski, who will play the role of AVAR, in the game scheduled for 5:45 p.m. ( Continental Portugal time) on Tuesday, at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis.
At the age of 41, Igor Pajac will meet for the fourth time with a Portuguese club... but for the first time with one other than Sporting Braga. The record could not be better, since under their aegis the arsenallists won Servette (in August 2024, 1-2), Hoffenheim (in November 2024, 3-0) and Nottingham Forest (in January 2026, 1-0).
The status of ‘talisman’ is extended if we take into account that, at international level, the Croatian was also once at the helm of a duel of the national sub-19 selection, and this took the best over the Republic of Ireland, by category 4-1, in the clearance phase for the European Championship of the echelon, in March 2022.
This will be, however, only the second occasion of the career in which you will judge a clash with that which is the largest football club competition on the Old Continent. The first was in October 2025, when Athletic Bilbao won over Qarabag in San Mamés for 3-1.
Sporting accounts in the Champions League
Sporting, remember, entered in the best possible way in the league phase of the 2026/27 sports season of the Champions League, by taking the best over Galatasaray, in the José Alvalade Stadium, by 3-1. This means that it adds three points and shares the leadership of the table with Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Como, Stuttgart, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Real Betis, Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Arsenal and AEK.
In the middle of this first-rate ‘train’ is also the Lens, who went to Fortuna Arena in the Czech Republic, defeat Slavia Prague by 2-3, in a ‘mad’ game, which was only decided three minutes after 90, by Reuben Aguilar, and which was marked by the debut in the million-dollar race of Mezian Mesloub Soares, Portuguese-French, only 16 years old.
In addition, games with LASK Linz (on 21 October at José Alvalade Stadium), Shakhtar Donetsk (on 3 November at Stamford Brige), Manchester United (on 25 November at José Alvalade Stadium), AS Rome (on 8 December at the Olympic Stadium in Rome), Barcelona (on 20 January at the José Alvalade Stadium) and Manchester City (on 27 January at the Etihad Stadium).