To the country whose league Pep Guardiola, Mo Salah and Casemiro have left and where Virgil van Dijk became the oldest to play every minute, India arrived depleted and distraught.Mohun Bagan Super Giant's last-minute refusal to release players led to India fielding a depleted side against Jamaica, the first match in London in 24 years, on Wednesday. India lost 0-2. (AIFF)Khalid Jamil’s men flew to London on the final day of the Premier League. Two days earlier, England announced their World Cup squad. (Be it Thomas Tuchel naming his men or Stephen Colbert signing off, isn’t it amazing that The Beatles continues to be a point of reference?).In the debate around Harry Maguire’s exclusion and everything else that happened – Michael Jordan wishing Guardiola “good luck on the links”, Erling Haaland winning the Premier League’s golden boot for the third time in four seasons (27 goals), Bruno Fernandes’s war of words with Roy Keane after being adjudged player of the league and breaking the record for most assists in a season (21) that finished with Martin Odegaard being handed a trophy his predecessors couldn’t hold in 22 years – I am not sure how many noticed an Indian team in England for the first time since 2002.Delayed decisionBut it created a lot of buzz at the weekend in India. Buzz of the wrong kind. “It took us months to get an invitation for this tournament,” an official at the All India Football Federation (AIFF) told me on Saturday evening, sounding more disapproving than disappointed. The official shall remain anonymous because he called not to give his comment but to vent at Mohun Bagan Super Giant’s refusal to release seven players. After they had completed formalities for the visa and had joined the short camp in Bengaluru.Even if every other club thinks otherwise and were okay with players being part of the four-team friendly, Mohun Bagan are within their right to not release footballers for competitions outside the FIFA window. They had done it for the CAFA Nations Cup and for India’s under-23 matches last year.Time was when Bhaichung Bhutia took a stand to not play from East Bengal because the pitch was poor. That was in 2003. In 2011, Bhutia, Subrata Paul, Gouramangi Singh and Sunil Chhetri had separately spoken in support of Bob Houghton knowing full well that it would not endear them to the federation after it had sacked the head coach. But just because some players spoke up for what they felt was right, it would be unfair to expect Mohun Bagan’s seven to go against their employers even after the club said they could travel at their own risk. Even with them, India could have lost against Jamaica but at least, it would have been with Jamil’s first-choice team.Where Mohun Bagan’s stand gets difficult to explain is the club not informing AIFF on time. AIFF’s detailed clarification says Mohun Bagan had not acknowledged any of the four emails on India’s participation in the Unity Cup.Mohun Bagan had not responded to reminders by AIFF over scheduled payments for ISL12 so, clearly, this is not the first time. Time was when football clubs, especially three of Asia’s oldest extant ones in Kolkata, were chided for not being professional. But as part of a sports vertical in one of India’s biggest corporate organisations it wouldn’t be unfair to expect that to change, would it?Instead, this seemed like mismanagement on the scale of West Ham investing the money they got for selling Declan Rice so poorly that they are now out of the Premier League.Last-minute scrambleHad Mohun Bagan told AIFF in time that their players would not be available, the last-minute scramble for visas and tickets – obviously at an additional cost – could have been avoided. What happened instead was reminiscent of how India travelled to the 2023 Asian Games where players took part after arriving on match day.In a season where pruning costs mattered, Mohun Bagan did not ask players and staff to take pay cuts. Long before anyone knew when the season would begin, they paid big money to sign Abhishek Singh Tekcham and Robson, the Brazilian. Firing Jose Molina mid-season must have meant hefty compensation and hiring Sergio Lobera in his place wouldn’t have been cheap.This felt like Mohun Bagan Super Giant being run in the way ATK and ATK Mohun Bagan was: the management would not baulk at using wealth in pursuit of trophies. Players and coaches have been poached and the market distorted. But, given that kind of fiscal muscle to flex, every club would have done that.Prabir Das missed a season but ATK spared no effort in his rehabilitation. Along with long-term contracts for players – also a way of tying them down even when they are not getting enough football in their legs, you could argue and you wouldn’t be wrong – this was proof of winds of change ISL had brought. And then, they wait for over one month to tell AIFF that players would only be available for the international window.The success of Mohun Bagan Super Giant, and that of their earlier avatars in ISL, is richly deserved. But their time in the top tier would also be remembered for losing 0-6 in Asia once, pulling out of Asian competitions twice and being fined and banned for it, and then letting India down.PLAY OF THE WEEK