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Concacaf League Game Played in Absurd Fog in Costa Rica

In Friday’s Hot Clicks: a soccer game out of a Stephen King movie, a bad beat on “Thursday Night Football” and more.

Dan Gartland

Do not adjust your monitor

A soccer player scored four goals in a single game on Thursday night, but you probably didn’t see it. No, seriously, even if you tuned in to FS2 to watch Saprissa and Municipal in Concacaf League action, you probably didn’t actually see the ball hit the back of the net four times. 

The conditions at the Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Aymá in San José, Costa Rica, were lousy from the start and only got worse as the game went on. Here’s what play-by-play man Josh Eastern’s view was as he called the game off a monitor. 

When play occurred on the side of the field nearest the hard camera, it actually wasn’t too tough to follow. 

If the ball traveled over to the Twin Peaks side of the pitch, that’s where the trouble started. Here you can see Municipal (from Guatemala City) lining up for a corner kick somewhere out in the soupy air. 

Johan Venegas was the man with four goals for the home team, three of which he scored with his head. Watching the highlights, the ball seems to materialize suddenly out of the mist before Venegas just knocks it home. 

It still wasn’t the worst weather a team from Costa Rica has played in this decade, though. Remember when the U.S. men’s national team faced Costa Rica in World Cup qualifying in a snow storm? 

Tough break if you bet the under

Aaron Rodgers absolutely torched the 49ers on Thursday Night Football, completing 25 of 31 passes for 305 yards and four touchdowns. The Packers had a 34–3 lead before the Niners scored two touchdowns in garbage time. 

The second one was as meaningless as a touchdown can be. With four seconds left on the clock, Jerick McKinnon found the end zone on third-and-goal to make it 34–17. 

Joe Buck did his best Al Michaels impression as the Niners lined up for the play. 

“There are some people interested to see if the 49ers can get into the end zone,” Buck said. 

(Click here if you can’t see the video above.)

That’s because Vegas had set the total for this game at 49 points. The McKinnon score and subsequent extra point gave San Francisco and Green Bay 51 points between them. 

That’s a really bad beat for anyone who bet the under. It looked all night like the Niners’ inept offense would keep the game safely below the 49-point threshold. They should have stopped counting points when it was clear the game had been decided. 

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A good song

Email dan.gartland@si.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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