It’s been a while since I’ve watched a European Champions League game. This typically involves waking up at 3.30 in the morning (evening in Europe) for the midweek games. Since starting work, I’ve not been able to drag myself out of bed in most cases. This time, I had the benefit of two days of rest thanks to CNY, so I managed to catch the game: Lille (France) vs Manchester United (England).

Before the game started, I said to myself: Ahhh, a European game. Little chance of Lille (or United for that matter) doing a Thailand.

Call it commentator’s curse. This extract from The Independent describes what happened (emphases added):

With seven minutes left Ryan Giggs had broken the deadlock with a quickly taken free-kick, curling the ball inside the far post as goalkeeper Tony Sylva lined up his wall. Sylva was booked amid passionate protests by Lille. When they eventually resumed the ball was thumped straight into touch from the kick-off and the players began leaving the pitch with Lille’s goalkeeping coach, Jean-Noel Duse, waving them off.

The match officials, Ferguson, Gary Neville, Louis Saha and Patrice Evra all became involved before the match resumed. By then the home crowd, already inflamed by a disallowed goal for their side, were furious. Missiles rained down in the closing minutes, hitting both Neville and the United bench. Incredibly, as he left the pitch Neville also appeared to be struck by an object thrown from the Lille dug-out.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in football,” said Ferguson. “I don’t understand it. It was disgraceful. It led to intimidation of the referee by the fans. They created a hostile atmosphere. Uefa have got to do something. I’ve seen a lot of bad behaviour in football as it is emotional but I’ve not seen that situation before.”

Ahh, Sir Alex… you obviously don’t watch South East Asian football. Unlike Lille, who almost walked off, Thailand went the whole hog and did it. Remember Thailand’s punishment for actually walking off the field – nada, zilch, nothing. Granted Sir Alex might have been referring to the fans creating a hostile atmosphere, but his comment about never having seen such a situation definitely referred to the attempted walk-out.

Will UEFA take action? Hmmm…