Lovers of puns would say this match was truly explosive. All right, so will we.

The Asian Champions League featured quarterfinal matches on Wednesday night, and in the contest between Iranian club Sepahan and Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia, a bomb went off on the pitch.

Literally.

That's only the third-craziest part of the story. The second-craziest part of the story (yes, the crazy continues later) is that a Sepahan player actually held the explosive device seconds before it detonated.

Yes, really.

The video from the incident appears above and serves as a macabre Thursday installment of the B/R World Football Video of the Day.

The player, 27-year-old Iranian midfielder Adel Kolahkaj, picked up what he thought was a piece of trash near the corner flag while a couple of his teammates discussed a call with the match officials.

Kolahkaj then threw the "trash" off the field, only for it to explode on contact with the ground. Surprise!

The description on the YouTube video calls the object a "firecracker," but that just doesn't seem like the right word. Watch the explosion again—the ground shakes a bit!

That's one heck of a firecracker, if you ask us. More like a small grenade.

Anyway, after the explosion, the officials ran away like Forrest Gump on a dirt road in Alabama. Hard to blame them, really.

If you're interested, the match ended in a scoreless draw, according to an AP report that makes absolutely no mention of the "firecracker."

And that, friends, is the craziest part of the story.

[h/t Who Ate All The Pies]

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