In a bizarre twist of events, the captain of Israel's national under-17 soccer team fell asleep at the airport during a layover in Turkey, inadvertently missing the flight back to Israel while his teammates and the team's staff remained oblivious.
The highly unusual incident unfolded on Wednesday. The team, returning from a tournament in Germany, had a layover in Turkey. However, during this layover, their team captain, Yonatan Oz, inadvertently fell asleep at the airport. When it was time to board the plane back to Israel, Oz remained at the airport, still in a deep slumber.
Team investigating incident
Surprisingly, neither his teammates nor the team's staff noticed the absence of their captain. It wasn't until they were already airborne that the realization struck – Oz was missing. Oz himself, now wide awake to the predicament, quickly contacted his parents, who promptly arranged for him to purchase a flight ticket back to Israel.
The team is now launching an investigation to understand how this oversight occurred, with the player not boarding the plane, and how none of the team's staff or his friends alerted him to the fact that he had missed the flight. "Everyone was utterly exhausted, and Yonatan sought a quiet corner to catch some rest, where he inadvertently drifted off," explained team members upon landing in Israel. It is worth noting that both the player and his teammates emphasize the importance of personal responsibility in such situations, according to sources familiar with the matter.