If there’s any sole thing perhaps every country takes pride in, it’s their sports teams. While other countries may see the United States as the laughing stock of any and all over-exuberance for football, the apparent backbone of our nation to some, we tend to actually fall far behind in the passion of places further east. In fact, fan riots appear to be most prevalent in the news following non-other than the World Cup. This prevailing history rears its ugly head once again, this time with Belgium being at the forefront of unsportsmanlike behavior, following their loss to Morocco.
Brussels, Belgium’s capital, looked to be the epicenter of some sort of apocalyptic event. To those unfamiliar with world sporting events, it may seem as though Belgium has fallen victim to The Second Coming. However, the cause of a torched vehicle, inflamed electric scooters, masked vigilantes confronting public safety officers, and the deployment of water cannons by police in efforts to ease violence of citizens was in fact due to a losing score of 2-0 against Morocco. It became so bad that mayor Phillipe Close strongly advised people to stay out of the city, including public transit which also became blocked off by police. The loss has become something of a countrywide frenzy.
While there is no current consensus to how many injuries there were, no fatalities have been reported, luckily. Morocco’s win, its first since 1998 and third lifetime, is certainly, however, not the first World Cup win to cause a stir. In 2021, several arrests were made in London following their win against Denmark in the Euro semi-final.
Surprisingly, these riots come from all sides of possible outcomes from the World Cup. In all regards, they are ridiculous.