Benalouane, beaten by a Piacenza Ultra: Novara’s defender at the police station

For once, it’s a player who meets a fan and not the other way around. It happened after Piacenza-Novara (1-1) in Group A of Serie C. At the end of the game, Novara defender Yohan Benalouane left the fence of the stadium where the visiting team’s bus was parked to get some items personal data from the Comrade Galuppini’s car. Along the way, he was approached by a group of disappointed local fans, with whom an argument immediately broke out. The player’s reaction was immediate: he hit one of the fans (a well-known ultra in the city) who fell to the ground, only to struggle to regain the parking space inside the stadium.

In the hospital

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Immediately with the help of the Red Cross, the fan was taken to the hospital, where he was treated with a dozen stitches on the arch of his right eyebrow. At the same time, the security forces intervened and accompanied the player to the police headquarters for a check: he was not released until late in the evening. Meanwhile, other fans gathered at the stadium and blocked the Novara bus at the stadium until 9 p.m. Benalouane, 35, a Tunisian with French nationality, is the most experienced member of the Piedmontese team: he joined Serie A from Cesena in 2010 and also played he for Parma, Atalanta, Leicester, Fiorentina, Nottingham Forest and Aris Thessaloniki.