"I feel like crying": visa glitch forces Bagan striker Cornell Glen to miss ACL qualifier in China

MOHUN BAGAN had to fly to China without one of their most important attackers as Cornell Glen had a glitch in his visa, leading to an immigration officer stopping him from boarding the flight.

After their I-League encounter with DSK Shivajians in Pune, the Mohun Bagan squad rushed to the Mumbai airport to catch a late night flight to Beijing, from where they were to go to Jinan to play their AFC Champions League qualifier match against Shandong Luneng Taishan. 

But one of their major strikers, Cornell Glen, was stopped at immigration because his papers still showed that he was employed by Shillong Lajong; the club from where he was loaned out to Bagan. The immigration officer refused to give him a visa to China because his papers did not reflect his employment at Mohun Bagan. 

When after multiple request the situation could not be resolved, the Mariners boarded the flight without Glen. Heartbrokenm the 35 year old striker, who has represented Trinidad & Tobago in the FIFA World Cup, wrote on his Facebook profile that he was "feeling like crying."

Glen immediately flew to Shillong to rectify the situation with his papers to avoid fututre mix-ups. But the oversight, which ideally should have been sorted out by the Mohun Bagan officials long ago, has ensured that the champions of India will have to face a much stronger Chinese club without one of their most trusted soldiers up front, and that makes an already uphill task an even trickier mountain to climb.