One Algerian player couldn’t handle today’s loss to the United States.
Rafik Saifi, who came in as a sub for Algeria in the 1-0 defeat, slapped a female reporter after the game. According to Yahoo.com, Saifi spotted the reporter and hit her with an open hand.
“I said nothing to him and he reached over and hit me,” said Asma Halimi, who works for Algerian newspaper Competition and has been critical of Saifi in the past.
“So I hit him back. I said nothing to him first.”
Francisco Aguilar Chang, a reporter from Guatemala who witnessed the incident, confirmed Halimi’s account of the unprovoked attack.
“She was standing there and the guy came here and he hit her,” Aguilar Chang told the website. “Then she hit him back and her nail caught his lip.”