India and Puerto Rico are scheduled to play an international friendly on Saturday in Mumbai, but the visitors haven’t even reached India yet! According to a report published in the Hindustan Times, the Puerto Rican football team missed their connecting flight from New York to Mumbai on Thursday, and the entire contingent, including players and coaching staff, will only reach on Friday evening around 5 pm.
On account of this delay, the Puerto Rican football team, currently ranked 114 in Fifa rankings, will get very little time to adjust to the Indian conditions, especially the humid weather conditions, which could take time to get acclimatised to.
The match against hosts India is scheduled for Saturday, 3 September, at 8 pm at the Andheri Sports Complex. There is a chance that, given their last minute arrival into India, the team might fail to overcome jet lag and tiredness and may also feel lethargic during the match, not to mention get less than ideal time to practice for the friendly against India.
Moreover, with Puerto Rico’s head coach Carlos Garcia Cantarero not present on Friday in Mumbai, the press conference, scheduled to take place one day before the match, will now be postponed to Saturday. And the customer manager meetings with team coaches has also been pushed a day ahead due to the team’s late arrival at the match venue.
India, ranked well below Puerto Rico in the Fifa rankings, would be looking forward to playing against the higher-ranked opposition to claim a win and earn some points to improve their rankings.
After the friendly, Puerto Rico would shift their attention to the third round of the 2017 Caribbean Cup qualification, as they are scheduled to play matches against Antigua and Barbuda on 8 October and 11 October respectively.
