Barcelona's performance in Wednesday's Champions League final has been called brilliant by pundits around the world, but the reaction in Nigeria was somewhat less positive. A minibus driver in Ogbo drove into a crowd of people celebrating the 2-0 Barcelona victory on Wednesday night. Four people were killed and 10 others were injured.
As you've probably guessed by now, the driver was rooting for Manchester United in the match.
"The driver had passed the crowd then made a U-turn and ran into them," a police spokeswoman said.
Maybe this is why soccer has never really caught on in the United States the way it has around the world. Here, we kill each other when celebrating victories by our favorite teams. It's those subtle differences that have kept the game from really gaining a foothold on our shores.
We also don't start rioting until after the game, but there were two stabbings in Italy related to the game before it even kicked off. One Manchester United supporter in Rome took a knife to the thigh near the Vatican, while an American was mistaken for a Brit and stabbed in the town of Ostia. Whatever happened to the days when people pretended not to be American while travelling through Europe?
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.
