Bizarre and unprecedented scenes crossed paths on Wednesday night and continued to run amok till the wee hours of Thursday morning when an Indian Super League (ISL) football match between ATK and FC Goa kicked off an hour and 15 minutes before midnight.
The ball got rolling at 10.45 p.m. and stopped at 12.37 a.m. with both sides locked in a 1-1 stalemate.
Goa's Spanish coach Sergio Lobera, fuming to say the least, took the post-match press conference by storm, saying: "ISL is a great league and it doesn't deserve matches like today."
The 40-year old coach along with the entire team spent the entire day at the Dabolim International Airport after a MiG-29K aircraft caught fire after it skidded off the runway, leading to operations being shut for an hour.
The Goans initially opted for a chartered plane on January 2 to reach here after they were unable to get reservations for their technical staff and players on a single passenger flight.
But the chartered flight developed a technical snag and the team could not fly out of Goa on January 2 afternoon and rescheduled their departure to 10 a.m. on the match day.
Then again, there was another technical snag and they could not take off before the fire incident took place.
"Yesterday, our flight had to make an emergency landing. This morning also the same happened," the Goa coach said.
"We spent the entire day at the airport with nothing to eat and nowhere to rest. And we had to come here running as otherwise, we would have lost three points. We had to change and come back for the match within five minutes after training," Lobera added, his face red with bewilderment.
It was learnt from reliable sources in the know that their kit was left at the airport as the team trained at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan in sneakers, track pants and jackets.
The lackadaisical attitude did not go down well with the organisers and id belived to be the reason for the match to be pushed further back to 10.45 p.m. from the 10.15 p.m. kick-off time. The team reached the venue at 9.42 p.m. after landing in the city at 8.59 p.m.
"The health of players is paramount. I am grateful no one was injured. We took a great risk today. We were not the ones the who made the decision (whether to go ahead with the game).
"It was the authorities who tell you where to play and when to play," Lobera said when asked whether injury chances to players were kept in mind before taking the field, and did they ever contemplate giving walkover to the home team.
According to competition rules, a match can start a maximum of two hours after scheduled kick-off. However, there is also a provision to extend that if the home team agrees and here ATK did. For the record no football match in India has kicked-off after 9 p.m.
The match was originally slated for December 31 but the organisers had to postpone the match as police refused to make security arrangements on the New Year's Eve.
ATK head coach and former Manchester United star Teddy Sheringham, asked a journalist first up at the post match presser: "You do understand it's 1 o' clock in the morning don't you?"
As a ripple of subdued laughter eddied across the room, the 51-year old Treble winner with United continued: "We talked about it (the delay) and kept focus. We were told different kick-off times. It's been a frustrating day and I think it showed. It was a hard day at the office. It is the first time I've finished a game a 1 am in the morning which is very unusual," the former England international said.
Despite repeated attempts, the ISL organisers could not be reached for a official statement.
Also for the record, in September 2003, Barcelona had played their La Liga home match against Sevilla five minutes past midnight.
The reason was due to the international break looming, and Barca star Ronaldinho set to fly to Brazil for a game against Ecuador, they urgently needed to get their game against Sevilla rearranged or be forced to field a weakened side.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta tried to move the game to the day before, but Sevilla insisted on sticking to Wednesday, much to Barcelona's annoyance.
--IANS
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