12/21/24
January 18, 2005
Angry soccer fans kill goaltender.: A teenage goalkeeper for Benin's national youth soccer team was killed by angry fans after a loss to Nigeria in a weekend match, officials said Tuesday. Samiou Yessoufou, 18, died Monday from injuries suffered when he was attacked a day earlier near his hotel in Benin's largest city, Cotonou, said Issa Hayatou, chief of the African Football Confederation.
Some people need to remind themselves that it's only a game. Others need to learn that the death of a young athlete is not really a suitable subject for flippant comments.
posted by squealy at 01:28 PM on January 18, 2005
My bad. My coping mechanism is to find humor in the tragic, unexplanable behavior of unpredictable human events. My timing I need to work on though... I apologize if I offended anyone.
posted by smithnyiu at 02:05 PM on January 18, 2005
Fair enough.
posted by squealy at 02:09 PM on January 18, 2005
I have met a lot of loyal fans in my life and some who get furious over game results, but I can't imagine that turning into mob violence against players on your own team. Just sad. Poor kid.
posted by Joey Michaels at 02:11 PM on January 18, 2005
Well, I prefer to look at these incidents as both unfortunate and not indicative of any broader social context/issue. But it only takes a few complete assholes to spoil the whole human parade. These people are probably not loyal fans but loyal gamblers. That apparently was behind Escobar's death for Columbia some years back after the World Cup. Pure speculation, of course.. but I hope I'm right.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 04:12 PM on January 18, 2005
Not to put any knock on the Benin players, but Nigeria is a world class national side and I wonder how the killers could have expected a different result.
posted by billsaysthis at 04:54 PM on January 18, 2005
The scary part is that in due time, it will happen here if it hasn't already
posted by DaGeneral at 06:58 PM on January 18, 2005
DaGeneral, where is your here?
posted by billsaysthis at 08:44 PM on January 18, 2005
Dunno bout DaGeneral, but my "here" is in Massachusetts, where we've had a few too many ]racases after youth or high school sporting events...parking lot grudges, that sort of thing. Last year there was a stabbing following a high school hockey final; this past weekend, some fans got into it after a high school basketball game, resulting in another stabbing. When someone gets stabbed and doesn't die, it isn't by design, it's by dumb luck. So, yeah, I would say that it pretty much has happened here, at least in my "here".
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:58 PM on January 18, 2005
I remember the good old days when the other team would just throw rocks at our bus. (That was in Mass., too.)
posted by usfbull at 01:41 PM on January 19, 2005
Man - you know things are serious when even Sepp Blatter is finding his belief is being beggared. Furthermore - I've yet to see a match that finished 3-0 where you could reasonably blame the keeper for the loss (unless it was Dudek). Also, what billy said - a 3-0 loss to Nigeria sounds like a good day for Benin to me.
posted by JJ at 08:51 AM on January 20, 2005
So does that mean he doesn't start next game?