If you've played Sunday league football then there's a good chance you've been stupidly late for a game, massively pissing off your opponents, or got to the match only to find your kit clashes and you have to play with your shirts inside out. But you wouldn't expect that kind of thing to happen at the highest level.
South American football seems another world to those of us in Europe. Over in this continent the weirdest thing that's ever happened in the Champions League was the time a volcano in Iceland forced Barcelona to travel by coach to Milan rather than fly.
In the Copa Libertadores though Atletico Tucuman were happily flying to their qualifying round second leg match against Ecuador's El Nacional. However just two hours before kick off they found themselves stuck in Guayaquil, 280 miles south of Quito.
Their original flight wasn't given clearance to leave and so the squad had to get off the flight and get on another one, leaving some of the non playing staff behind.
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That flight took off only 30 minutes before kick off whilst El Nacional decided that they would only wait the 45 minutes after the original kick off time that FIFA allows a team to be late and the tv reportedly showed a countdown clock for those 45 minutes, as per Goal.
When the team did arrive in the Ecuadorian capital they were given a 100mph police escort to the stadium as they rushed to make the new kick off time.
When they arrived at the ground they were 17 minutes past the deadline set by their hosts but they agreed for the match to go ahead, despite the incredible delay.
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An hour and a half later than originally planned and just half an hour after arriving at the ground Atletico Tucuman were ready to play but there had been another twist.
The team had left the kit, and presumably the kit man, on the original, grounded flight and were without a kit. Fortunately, as per the Independent, Argentina's u20 team had been playing at the ground the week before and their kit was still there.
Kitted out in Argentina's infamous blue and white stripes the side won 1-0 and went through to the next round of the Copa Libertadores after a 3-2 victory on aggregate.
It's Tuchman's first foray into South America's Champions League in their 115 year history and they probably won't have a more memorable night than their first away trip!
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Argentina
