Spain authored a dramatic comeback on Monday evening, coming back from a goal down to book a place in the Paris 2024 Olympics gold medal match against the hosts France courtesy of Fermin Lopez and Juanlu Sanchez. It was at times a feisty affair.
There were no shortage of aggressive challenges and arguments during the game, and the rivalry continued off the pitch. Morocco captain and Paris Saint-Germain star Achraf Hakimi is known to celebrate his goals with a ‘penguin dance’, and did so after he scored against La Roja during the penalty shootout.
After the match, Valencia winger Diego Lopez included a penguin emoji in his social media post, while Atletico Madrid striker Samu Omorodion also posted a number of penguin emojis alongside laughing faces.
He later deleted his tweet, but his Instagram was sadly flooded with monkey emojis, as a form of racial abuse in retaliation. Needless to say, Lopez did not receive the same abuse for his tweet.
While Omorodion was no doubt being slightly mischevious with his post, it was ultimately a harmless dig at a rival player. To be met with a barage of hatred and criminal hate speech is clearly completely lamentable.