Istvan Kovacs will referee a match in the UEFA Champions League main phase for the first time this season

Istvan Kovacs will referee, on Wednesday evening at 22:00, the match between Real Madrid and RB Leipzig, scheduled to take place at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in the third round of the league phase of the UEFA Champions League. It is the Romanian referee’s first appointment to a match in this phase of the competition in the current season.

Kovacs will be assisted on the two touchlines by his compatriots Mihai Marica and Ferencz Tunyogi. The fourth official will be Szabolcs Kovacs, the referee’s brother. The match will receive video assistance from Poland’s Tomasz Kwiatkowski and Belgium’s Bram Van Driessche.

In the current edition of the Champions League, Istvan Kovacs has so far refereed only two matches in the qualifying rounds: Bodø/Glimt – Union SG, which ended 3-2 after extra time, and Sabah – Hapoel Beer Sheva, which ended 5-2 after extra time.