Today in Hooligans – Dutch Soccer Fans Got So Rowdy in The Stands, Their Own Team Banned Them From Traveling to Away Games Because "The Safety of Home Fans Cannot Be Guaranteed"
Now that's soccer. Lit flares in close quarters. Smoke everywhere 11 minutes into the game. High-pitched screaming firework noises. Bottle rockets being launched from the hooligan section. Parents shielding their children from danger as they flee for the exits. All for a team I've never heard of in a league I had to Google to find out what country it was in (it's the Netherlands).
To me, there's something comforting in knowing at any given time of day, at any point in the calendar year, there's a tier-whatever professional soccer club playing a random game in god-knows-what-league that has fans so electrified they're willing to burn down their own stadium. It's like how people find comfort in knowing that us humans are merely a spec of dust in this vast universe. It makes the problems we stress over on a daily basis seem insignificant. So next month when you find yourself ready to smash your remote because your 0-2 NFL team was just screwed over by an impossibly soft roughing the passer call... just think about the Feyenoord fan who's still laid up in a Rotterdam hospital because one of his drunken brothers shot a roman candle up his ass to celebrate a throw-in.
Unfortunately, this feel good story of flare guns, bottle rockets, and Dutch soccer fans lighting themselves on fire to honor the beautiful game took a sad turn yesterday.
Reuters – Feyenoord will not allow travelling supporters to attend their next two away matches after fans let off fireworks that injured seven people and held up their Dutch league game at Cambuur Leeuwarden on Sunday.
Feyenoord are barring their fans from the away sections at NEC Nijmegen and PEC Zwolle next month.
"The club management has decided to do this following the much-discussed and completely unacceptable fireworks incident in Leeuwarden last Sunday," the club said on Wednesday.
I hate it. Not my soccer. Not my soccer I've never watched in a league I barely know exists. You don't ban your own hooligans for the safety of your opposition. Opposing fans fearing for their lives when Feyenoord comes to town is best case scenario. And if I know SC Cambuur fans like I think I do, they don't want to be protected. Soccer is war. When your opposition is scary, you don't cower in fear, or politely ask them not to shoot. You bring a bigger gun to the fight. When Feyenoord comes to town, you buy out every fireworks warehouse in the Netherlands, and have your fans show up to the game like an Uber Eats driver ready to fist fight a security guard over $20 worth of Just Salad.
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And while I'm making Barstool references, if SC Cambuur did want to keep Feyenoord fans out of their stadium, they wouldn't hide behind the suits in Feyenoord's front office. They would fight firework with firework, and defend the gates of Cambuur Stadion like the good people of Cooperstown, Wisconsin fending off an invasion of Doitches.
I expected more (or less?) out of this professional Dutch soccer league. No wonder their country is always getting bounced in the knockout stage of the World Cup. Take a page out of Argentina's book for christ sakes.
College football starts in 3 days.