A Virginia father was arrested after he allegedly beat his son’s youth soccer coach over the weekend — leaving the victim with a black eye and swollen face.
Blerand Hxoha, 45, was charged with malicious wounding after police said he used a metal water bottle to bash in the coach’s face during a boys soccer match in Manassas Saturday, Fox5 reported.
Coach Vince Villanueva told the local Washington, DC-area station he didn’t know why the father attacked him, but remembers the team was losing ahead of the beat-down that knocked him out.
“The father went over to talk to the son and then when I went to get him and put him back in the game, I said ‘Are you okay?’ And he said, ‘No he’s not,’ and he said, ‘Coach can I talk to you?’ And then everything went downhill from there,” he said.
Villanueva never met Hxoha or his son before. He was subbing in for a coaching friend during the scrimmage with the Northern Virginia Soccer Club at George Hellwig Memorial Park when he was attacked, the station reported.
Some off-duty cops who were at the game were able to move the children a safe distance away and calm the situation, he said.
Villanueva, who is the head coach of the varsity girl’s soccer team at Potomac Senior High School, said he never experienced such aggression in his decades of coaching.
One of his eyes was still bloodshot, swollen and bruised and he had cuts on his nose and face as he spoke to Fox5 on camera Monday.
He said parents should let their kids be kids while playing sports and not take the competition too seriously while trusting their children’s coaches.
“Allow them to do their job and just make it a fun environment for them,” Villanueva said. “Kids have enough stress in life with everything else in the world, but allow them to have that moment of some place to escape from.”
The coach said he only learned of his alleged attacker’s name following the assault.
Hoxha is being held behind bars without bail.
