The Hat-trick | Igor Angulo’s Injury Time Winner Helps Goa Down Jamshedpur; Atletico’s Kieran Trippier Banned For 10 Weeks; Fans Help Club By Buying 72,000 Tickets In Empty Stadium

Igor Angulo’s double, including a stoppage time strike, gave FC Goa a 2-1 victory over Jamshedpur FC in their Indian Super League (ISL) match at Tilak Maidan, Vasco, on Wednesday. With the victory, Goa rose to fifth spot in the standings with 11 points from eight matches, behind NorthEast United on goal difference. Goa play Hyderabad FC on the 30th. Jamshedpur, meanwhile, are right behind Goa with 10 points from eight games, and face Bengaluru FC next, on the 28th.

Stephen Eze (33') gave Jamshedpur the lead in the first half but Angulo's brace (64', 90+4') helped Goa claim all three points and end JFC's six-match unbeaten run. 

The match had its moment of controversy too, with a goal not being allowed. Alex Lima's effort for Jameshedpur, seemed to have bounced off the underside of the crossbar, and over the line, before bouncing out with the score at 1-1. The referee did not see it that way though.

After the match, Jamshedpur manager Owen Coyle would fume at what he perceived as the refereeing errors that have plagued his team's campaign, and said "we've been robbed."

"I feel robbed,” said Coyle. “It’s becoming embarrassing. I'm okay with fouls not going our way, but clear decisions like today are embarrassing. The ball was clearly over the line and the linesman did not see it. At a level we are playing, that should not be happening. The boys have played their socks off and this happens. I feel cheated."

Both sides showed attacking intent from the start, but had just a single shot on target in the first half. In the second half Angulo and FC Goa did their part to change that statistic and the narrative of the match.

 "It was important to get that goal and its good for the team's confidence. It’s not that we are playing bad or we have bad players. We needed today's win to help us," said Angulo.

"I honestly don't know how I scored that goal, but it went in which is the most important thing," he added.

Trippier Banned for Breaching FA betting rules

Atletico Madrid defender Kieran Trippier has been suspended from all football-related activity for 10 weeks and fined £70,000 after being found guilty of breaches of the Football Association’s (FA) betting regulations. The announcement of the sanction follows a lengthy investigation sparked by irregular betting patterns related to his move from Tottenham to Atlético Madrid in July last year.

The FA charged Trippier with seven alleged breaches of the rule that forbids anyone inside the game to pass on information not publicly available to be used by others for betting. Trippier denied all allegations and has said that he did not place any bets himself or profit from bets made by other people.

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Trippier requested a personal hearing to explain himself, which the FA granted him around the time of England’s Nations League tie at home to Denmark in October. An independent commission, appointed to hear the case, found him guilty of four of the alleged breaches. They dismissed the other three.

Trippier’s punishment follows that of Daniel Sturridge, the former Liverpool and England striker, also for betting irregularities. Sturridge was initially given a six week ban after being found guilty of providing inside information to family and friends relating to his move away from Liverpool in 2018. But the FA successfully appealed against the findings of the independent commission and Sturridge was given a four-month ban in March.

Trippier’s suspension runs up to and including February 28, meaning that he stands to miss 11 La Liga games plus at least one in the Copa del Rey and the first leg of the Champions League last-16 tie at home to Chelsea. He has not missed a single minute for Atlético in the league or Champions League this season and his absence will hit them hard. He has the right to appeal the decision.

Dresden Fans Give Club Helping Hand

Watching sport over the last few months may have convinced many — broadcasters and advertisers mostly — that fans in stadiums don’t really matter. In part this is true because a huge amount of sport revenue now comes from TV rights and streaming rights. In India the rules distort themselves till they don’t make sense. 

Across the rest of the world though, power and compassion still resides in the hands of fans. Something best illustrated by the fact that a cry for help by German third tier side Dynamo Dresden for its side ended up becoming one of the most heartwarming stories of the day. The club said they sold more than 72,000 ‘ghost’ tickets for their cup game at home to Darmstadt on Tuesday, even though the match was played in an empty stadium.

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Lower tier sides in Germany have been especially hard hit by having to play matches without fans -- known in Germany as ‘ghosts matches’ -- during the pandemic as they depend more heavily on gate receipts than Bundesliga teams. With fans barred, and Dresden’s finances in trouble, the club decided to put tickets on sale at five euros ($6.08) each and appealed to fans to buy them out of solidarity. 

Even the former East German champions were surprised when 72,112 ‘ghosts’ bought tickets, nearly three times their average attendance last season and over twice their stadium’s capacity. The club said on its website that it would have been the third-biggest crowd ever to watch one of their games.

“Every Dynamo can be proud of this. That is certainly unique in Germany,” Dresden striker Philipp Hosiner said. It did not all go to plan for Dresden, however, as their second division opponents cantered to a 3-0 win while a planned choreography involving 30,000 biodegradable balloons had to be cancelled due to high winds.

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