Fog, Flight Tracking and a Football Match: Lech Poznań's Odyssey to the Faroe Islands
A football match in the Faroe Islands almost didn't happen because the visiting team couldn't land their plane.
Lech Poznań, the Polish league champions, were due to play KÍ Klaksvík — the champions of the Faroe Islands, a tiny North Atlantic archipelago between Iceland and Norway — in the Europa League third qualifying round on Thursday evening at Tórsvøllur, the national stadium in the capital, Tórshavn. Kick-off was set for 6.30pm local time. The only problem was getting there.
The Faroe Islands have a single airport, Vágar, wedged between mountains and the sea. Fog is a fact of life, and this week it settled in with stubborn purpose. Lech tried to land on two consecutive days and failed both times. On Wednesday, head coach Niels Frederiksen was filmed telling his players they could not "just postpone, postpone, and postpone" their departure. On Thursday morning, they boarded the plane again, circled in a holding pattern off the west coast of Norway for 40 minutes, and diverted to Bergen.
Thousands of Lech fans followed the drama in real time. The club's charter flight became the most-tracked aircraft on Flightradar, the global flight-tracking service, as supporters watched a dot on a screen hoping it would turn toward the Faroes. It didn't, at least not straight away.
Lech were in talks with Uefa over whether the fixture should proceed as scheduled or be pushed back to give the squad time to reach the islands. The match had added tension because of the scoreline: Lech won the first leg 1-0 in Poznań, settled by a late goal from Ivorian striker Yannick Agnero. A one-goal margin is slender. A postponement would have meant a compressed turnaround and a fatigued squad.
KÍ Klaksvík know the weather drill better than anyone. They advise visiting teams to arrive two days early and encourage them to fly with Atlantic Airways, the Faroese national carrier, whose pilots specialise in the island's tricky landing conditions. Three Atlantic Airways flights did manage to land on Thursday morning before the fog thickened again. Lech, however, had chosen to charter a private jet from Comlux — a decision that looked sensible for comfort and scheduling flexibility, less so when the weather closed in.
This is not an isolated headache for travelling football teams in the Faroes. Two opponents of NSÍ Runavík, another Faroese club competing in the Conference League this summer, were also delayed and forced into late arrivals. NSÍ were set to host Switzerland's FC Lugano on the same day — a fixture Lugano had handled by arriving on Tuesday, the prudent course KÍ recommend to everyone.
Back in Poland, Lech's troubles drew a familiar response from their rivals. Legia Warsaw, their Warsaw-based competitors, posted a mock-up of a bus-tracking app on social media advising Lech's next league opponents, Radomiak Radom, to plan travel carefully and consider public transport. Derby-week banter travels further than any charter plane.
KÍ Klaksvík are no strangers to European nights making headlines beyond their shores. In 2023, they became the first Faroese club ever to reach the group stage of a major European competition, beating Swedish opposition to get there (Reuters). A population of roughly 55,000, one airport, and a stadium that holds around 6,000 — and they have already made history on this stage once.
What gives this story its colour is the collision of modern football with ancient weather. A flight tracked by thousands, a coach losing patience, Uefa deliberating a kickoff time — all because a blanket of fog sat over a runway in the North Atlantic and refused to move. The romance of European football isn't always on the pitch. Sometimes it's in the holding pattern above Norway, waiting for a gap in the clouds.
