Head abandons team after fixture late on in the day (8)
I believe the answer is:
eventide
'the day' is the definition.
(eventide is a kind of day)
'head abandons team after fixture late' is the wordplay.
'head abandons' means to remove the first letter.
'team' becomes 'side' (both can mean a sports team).
'after' says to put letters next to each other.
'fixture late' becomes 'event' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'side' with its initial letter taken away is 'ide'.
'ide' after 'event' is 'EVENTIDE'.
'on in' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for eventide that I've seen before include "sunset" , "some time later?" , "onset of dusk" , "latter part of the day" , "late in the day?" .)