India, Dec. 13 -- Lionel Messi's much-hyped Kolkata stop was designed as a stadium spectacle: an exhibition match, a "GOAT Tour" stage moment, and a short on-ground appearance that would cap the afternoon. Instead, the Salt Lake Stadium programme unravelled into disorder, with objects thrown towards the field and Messi being moved out earlier than scheduled.

So what went wrong? The clearest explanation is not one single trigger, but a stack of operational pressure points that collided at the worst possible time.

Messi's on-field time was relatively short - a walkaround, waves, and quick acknowledgements. In a venue packed with people who came primarily for that "moment", any delay, obstruction, or truncation makes the headline act feel ...