The entrance to the Kalinga Stadium where India will take on Qatar in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers on Tuesday
\nThe entrance to the Kalinga Stadium where India will take on Qatar in the FIFA World Cup qualifiers on Tuesday
\n| Photo Credit:
\nNeeladri Bhattacharjee\/ Sportstar\n<\/p>\n
For the people arriving for new tickets on Monday, however, it was just despondent silence amid the bustling traffic along the Katikada-Jaipur road adjacent to the stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cTickets sold out!\u201d read two A4 sheets at the counters, with the football aficionados only left with the choice of buying replica jerseys from the nearby hawker and enjoying the game from somewhere outside the stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to watch the match with friends here,\u201d said Pratyush Patra, one of the many standing at the counter, with three of his friends, \u201cBut they are saying that it\u2019s all gone. I don\u2019t know (what to do), I will try and wait and see if I get at least something from the last lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
Fans queueing in front of the box office at the Kalinga Stadium ahead of the India vs Qatar FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
\n| Photo Credit:
\nNeeladri Bhattacharjee\/ Sportstar\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nFans queueing in front of the box office at the Kalinga Stadium ahead of the India vs Qatar FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
\n| Photo Credit:
\nNeeladri Bhattacharjee\/ Sportstar\n<\/p>\n
The last lot, unfortunately, finished yesterday, one of the ticket officials said. \u201cTickets were priced at 500 (North-west Stand) and 200 rupees (for all other stands). But there is no more left,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Sport, in itself, has never been a life-and-death problem. Though it puts bread on the table for a minority of the populace, for the larger chunk, it is never a disposition that can bring the world to a halt.<\/p>\n
It is, instead, a realm of hope, joy and at times, screeching dejection that seduces people to fall in love with it over and over again.<\/p>\n
The occasion seemed to have bound kids around the ticket counters, clutching fingers their fathers\u2019 fingers, painters holding tricolour-painted brushes and hawkers with blue shirts with \u2018Chhetri\u2019 written on them.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s match against a side ranked 41 spots above it looks like a loss on paper but sport doesn\u2019t work that way. India will be hopeful of providing goosebumps to the cluster of cheering Indian football fans.<\/p>\n
\nComments\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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India, led by Sunil Chhetri, will play Asian Champion Qatar to take a step forward in reaching the third round of the FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-sport-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}