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Diego Godin’s last game as a defender for Velez Sarsfield ended with a loss to Huracan. This led to a violent incident on Sunday, when some of the Argentine club’s fans attacked players and beat them at gunpoint.
When the team returned to its training camp at the Villa Olimpica Stadium a few hours after the game, the club’s fans beat them up badly.
“We would get our cars and go home when we got there. When we came out, it was dark, and the “Barra Brava” cars found us. On Monday, the striker Gianluca Prestianni told ESPN that there were likely five or six of them.
“They punched me twice in the face and grabbed my jacket. I was too scared, and my friends didn’t want to go home if they were followed.
“They even told one of them, ‘Get out of the car, or I’ll shoot you twice in the legs,'” the 17-year-old forward said, adding that the incident makes him think twice about staying at the club.
The threat was made to Leonardo Jara, who used to play defense for Boca Juniors. “They crossed in front of me and told me to get out of my car, or they would shoot me in the legs,” he said on a local radio show.
Santiago Castro, a forward, and Francisco Ortega, a defender, were also involved in the fight.
The club said, “Atletico Velez regrets and strongly rejects what happened last night to some of our first-team players in the area of the Villa Olimpica, which was very scary.”
Local media said that the players didn’t file a police report, but they were called in for a criminal investigation, and coach Sebastian Mendez told the directors that the team wouldn’t go back to training until they knew they were safe.
After losing the last game of Argentina’s top league, Velez finished 25th out of 28 teams, with only five wins in 27 games.