Many of my matches with start time right after new season day maintenance did not allow me to enter to manage and finished early. Usually there was no network connection problem. But I was not allowed to enter the match even if the start time has been passed. If I did not manually reload the game, it would forever show 'less than 1 min" or "<1min". After I manually reloaded, the game has already been finished even though it was less than 8-10 minutes from the start time.

I guess that for some reasons, sometimes daily maintenance should be extended. Those matches before the new day start time would be locked and simulated. After daily maintenance finally really finished, managers would allow to enter the match, but they cannot manage the match even if it is just several after original start time.

I think my cases are similar to yours.