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November 27, 2007

Crowd invasion in Costa Rica

I'm watching the UNCAF Interclubes 3rd/4th place match between Alajuelense and Municipal in Costa Rica (Municipal's leading 2-1 at 80'), and the match has been stopped because of an invasion by some barra bravas minutes after Fredy García scored the go-ahead goal.  There were some comical moments as a couple of the fans nimbly evaded the attempts of the security guards to capture them.  But now it has gone all bad.  "Fans" - and I put that in quotes unreservedly - at one end of the stadium running on top of the fence surrounding the field, throwing barrels and even turnstiles over the emergency exit onto the field. 

The players of both teams, as well as the referees, ran toward the field entrance located behind one of the goals -- in the section where the disturbances are taking place.  They're running under heavy guard by the riot cops.

As I was writing that previous sentence, another unit of  riot police charged through the section where most of the disturbances were taking place, and they seem to have taken control.  You can see images of injured police officers being carried away, and of innocent fans, many holding small children, looking on in amazement and horror.

The situation seems to be out of control.  I'm listening to the Spanish-language commentator on Gol TV right now (it's the Costa Rican feed actually), and it seems that Alajuelense's barras only arrived at the match during the second half, and they devoted their time to making chants and threats against the directors of the club.

This post will be updated through the evening.  So once again we have another incident of crowd trouble at an international match in Costa Rica, and Alajuelense could be in some serious trouble from UNCAF and/or CONCACAF.

UPDATE:  Costa Rica's Nación newspaper has a report on their website.  There were also incidents between gangs and the police outside the stadium.   An UNCAF official has said that the match will be declared a 3-0 Municipal victory, which just about settles the tie with the return leg in Guatemala left to play. 

The article title says it all: Bochorno en el Morena Soto (Shame in the Morena Soto stadium).

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