Throw a freaking firecracker towards the pitch and get the match abandoned early when you’re losing 1-0 to the Netherlands. Nice one, Albanian fans. Video below.

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Perhaps the best commentary I’ve read about this deplorable incident comes in this blog from New York’s Staten Island Advance, who concludes that the power of soccer’s appeal abroad lies in its hooligans.

Maybe I’m coming to this game a little late, but here’s why I don’t think professional soccer will ever be as big in America as it is overseas: because security would never allow fans into Giants Stadium for a Red Bulls game with a pocketful of fireworks…

I’ve [sic] would say I’ve been to roughly 500 professional sporting events and never have I feared for my life. So, sorry Becks, but I don’t think soccer won’t [sic] make it over here. Until they loosen up the security at the gates.

I guess he didn’t go to the Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey in ‘79, then.

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