Players were game even for even a 1am kickoff: Tandon

Panaji: Except for about an hour when a MiG 29K combat aircraft veered off the runway and operations were shut at the Goa international airport, FC Goa president Akshay Tandon never seemed in doubt that his team would make it to Kolkata. Tandon had booked himself on the chartered flight to Kolkata to boost the morale of the players. The previous day, another chartered flight was forced to make an emergency landing 20 minutes into their journey, but a day later when the players landed up at the airport to travel to Kolkata, nobody had a clue that it would probably be the most testing 10 hours of their lives. Or that they would play their ISL encounter against ATK well past midnight.
“It was a risk and not ideal but we spoke to the players and coaches, and while it wasn’t ideal, it was better than looking for alternatives and cramping our schedule even more. Nobody indulged the thought of postponing the match,” said Tandon.
FC Goa were not particularly pleased with the revised schedule that will see them play three matches in eight days. Another period in February – between 21 and 28 – will see them play another three games in eight days. A postponement here – even if it was not in their hands – would have meant another fixture congestion.
“The boys didn’t want to go home. The players were in the mood to play. They had not played (a competitive match) for 10 days. They said, ‘even if the match kicks off at 1am, let’s play’,” said the FC Goa president.
Tandon said the team would have probably not made it to Kolkata had it not been for the efforts of the league organisers, IMG-Reliance. It were the organisers who arranged two separate charters from Delhi and Jabalpur to take the team to Kolkata, and managed to secure permission from the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for preferential landing, crucially for a flight that was not even scheduled to land there in the first place.
“We see the effort the league is putting in. They are going out of their way. The charters arranged by them, then the police convoy that we got en route to the stadium. A lot of effort went behind the scene to ensure that the game happened,” said Tandon.
Several fans have questioned FC Goa’s wisdom in chartering a flight to Kolkata, a day before their clash. When the chartered flight was forced into an emergency landing, questions became louder as Goa were left with no choice but land in Kolkata on the day of their match.
Tandon, however, said all decisions were taken to ensure that Goa had the best possible preparation for the ISL encounter against ATK.
“We didn’t have any other option. After the date change, the best option was to take a 4am flight to Mumbai and another 7am flight to Kolkata. Given the fact that we had factored training and rest, the best way to reach Kolkata was to charter a flight, even though it crossed our budget.
“There was another option: a 5.35am direct flight but that had only 12 seats. Our original plan was to land in Kolkata 30 hours before kick-off. That should have been good enough, but nobody had a clue of what was in store for us at the airport. It was out of our hands,” said Tandon.