When Saquon Barkley carried the ball for the first time for the Philadelphia Eagles, a moment Eagles fans had been waiting for all offseason, he slipped on the grass in Brazil and lost 5 yards.

He wasn’t the only player to slip on the grass at Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The NFL was advertising the Eagles-Green Bay Packers game in Brazil, the first regular-season game in South America. But slipping and sliding on the grass became a storyline once people found the right streaming service to watch the game.

Packers receiver Christian Watson slipped a few times in the first quarter, including once when he was in the end zone for a potential touchdown. Other players appeared to be very unsteady when they tried to make the cut. On one play early in the second quarter, Packers running back Emanuel Wilson broke off a 14-yard run, stopped to make the cut, and his feet slid about a yard as he fell onto the seat of his pants.

Everyone seemed to notice the issues with the court, including former NFL star JJ Watt and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers.

The start of the game, a clash between two of the NFL’s most talented teams, seemed disjointed in many ways. Perhaps it was the rare Friday night kickoff, or an announcer team more familiar to American football fans than NFL fans, or simply the unusual setting for the game. The seemingly dreadful field conditions did not help the level of play. They left both teams scrambling along the sidelines to put on the proper cleats to deal with the grass.

“Do what you have to do, change your cleats, but it’s definitely been an issue,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said of Peacock late in the first half.

The NFL wants to grow its game internationally and sends teams to other countries to play. Often, those games are played in stadiums that rarely or never host American football games. You would think that the multi-billion dollar league would ensure that players don’t end up on substandard playing fields.