Lukic Scores Hat-Trick, Then Keeps Scoring Until Corvinul Players Walk Home to Hunedoara

Jovo Lukic's hat-trick in Universitatea Cluj's 3-0 win over Corvinul Hunedoara has been reclassified by the Superliga as a permanent condition rather than a match result, and the Bosnian striker is now required to score at least one goal per hour, around the clock, at the Petroșani stadium until the league says otherwise.

The first extension came within minutes of the final whistle, when match delegates ruled that a hat-trick of such quality could not be allowed to simply stop. A portable goal was wheeled onto the centre circle, Lukic was handed a fresh ball, and the fourth goal was recorded before the Corvinul players had finished shaking hands. The fifth followed during the post-match interviews.

By Saturday morning the arrangement had grown. A rota was posted at the stadium gates listing Lukic's hourly slots, and local volunteers were organised into shifts to retrieve balls from the net and return them to the penalty spot. Corvinul's squad, unable to leave while the scoring continued, have been walking the thirty-odd kilometres back to Hunedoara in stages, pausing whenever the away end erupts again.

«We looked at the rulebook and found nothing that says a hat-trick has to end,» a Superliga delegate said. «So we are treating it as an open-ended commitment. The player has been very professional about it. He has asked only for water and a chair between goals.»

Universității Cluj have embraced the arrangement, sending their entire youth academy to Petroșani to study Lukic's technique at close range and scheduling a nightly torchlit procession to the stadium whenever the count passes another dozen. Corvinul, for their part, have requested that the goals at least be spread across both halves of the hour.

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