SAFF Championship 2023: Pakistan arrive in India amid travel chaos

Pakistan initially arrived with less than half their team.

The 2023 SAFF Championship begins today at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru. The tournament opener will see Kuwait go up against last edition’s runner up Nepal at 3:30 PM IST. After the first match, the tournament’s most anticipated fixture will unfold in the evening where defending champions India will face off against arch-rivals Pakistan.

The Blue Tigers come into the tournament after a successful Hero Intercontinental Cup campaign while the Pakistani Falcons come to Bengaluru on the back of a demoralising 4-Nation Cup in Mauritius. 

As reported earlier, the Pakistan national team’s arrival was delayed due to visa issues. Well now the big news is that the Pakistani Falcons have landed in India this morning, barely 12 hours before their fixture against the defending champions.

According to ESPN, the Pakistan team left Mauritius at 5:30 pm (local time) and landed in Mumbai at 1 am on Wednesday. Due to last minute arrangements, the team couldn’t book tickets for all 32 players on the same flight from Mumbai to Bengaluru and were therefore forced to divide the players in two groups.

"We landed in Mumbai at 1:30 am, but there were no officials at the passport control office. They came after 30 minutes and gave us a few forms to fill out including the visa form, which we had already filled and submitted to the authorities before arriving in Mumbai," Hasnain Haider, Pakistan's team manager, told ESPN.

"The process took quite some time and the first group just about managed to board their flight at 3:55 am (six players and six team officials). However, the second group (14 players and six officials) missed their flight because their forms took longer to be approved," he added.

After that the management had to book another flight to accommodate their second group of players. They booked 20 tickets of the flight which left Mumbai at 9:15 AM and landed in Bengaluru at around 11 AM. The players would then reach their hotel by 1 PM.

Despite the gruelling travel, the players are keen to play, said Haider. "The players are ready to play, but obviously they are not in the best condition. None of them has caught any sleep and we've been travelling for nearly 17 hours now," he told ESPN.