Portuguesa fans eat players’ pizzas as punishment after loss

by Brooks Peck

Hungry Hungry Hooligans

“We eat your pizza. We eat it up!”

Brazilian fourth division club Portuguesa lost 3-0 to Oeste on Tuesday—a result that surely had them looking forward to eating up their sorrows with their customary post-match pizzas. Except the 10 pizzas they ordered never reached the dressing room, because the club’s disgruntled fans intercepted the delivery guy, paid for the pizzas themselves and ate them out of spite.

Those fans told the tale of their delightfully cruel punishment to Reuters:

“I think the delivery boy came in the wrong gate, he was supposed to go to the home dressing room but he drove in front of the fans who were leaving the ground,” Lucas Ventura, a Portuguesa fan and owner of Netlusa, a fans’ forum, told Reuters.

“One guy said to the delivery boy, ‘Who’s that for?’ and when he said, ‘the players’, the fans got the money together and paid him 300 reais ($94) for them,” Ventura said.

“They gave four to the cleaner and the guy on the turnstile and other staff and kept the other six for themselves. The fans were furious. But they cheered up a bit after eating the pizza.”

Harsh as it may seem, this could be a way for Portuguesa supporters to spur their club on to better results. If you win, you get the pizzas. If you lose, we get them. With pizza as a motivator, Portuguesa could be back in the first division in no time. And if they’re not, well, at their fans will be too stuffed to care.

Follow Brooks on Twitter @BrooksDT.