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Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois attempts to chase a rat off the pitch during the World Cup European Qualifying soccer match between Wales and Belgium at the Cardiff City Stadium in Cardiff, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (David Davies/PA via AP)
Streakers, hippies, canines (most adorably in the 1962 World Cup quarter-final between England and Brazil when Jimmy Greaves cuddled the intruding dog only for it to pee on him) and cats, sometimes a snake or such-like creepy crawlies, are familiar pitch invaders. A pig even (Australia vs England WSC game at the Gabba in 1980). But not perhaps a rodent.
But it did put the World Cup qualifier between Belgium and Wales in Cardiff on hold for nearly five minutes. At the 65th minute of the game, when the game was paused after one of the Belgium players suffered a knock on the head, goalkeeper Thibault Courtois spotted something usual snuggle along the green grass off the Cardiff City Stadium. To his amusement it was a rat, wading through the dewy outfield. He tried to stealthily grab the intruder, but it eluded his grasp. He did not give up and chased it until the centre of the pitch.
By this time the cat and mouse game was stopped, with Belgium leading 2-1. Some of the players set about trying to snare it. But the rat was in no mood to let up. In the end, Wales defender Brennan Johnson ushered the rat off the pitch, before it slipped past a ball boy and disappeared behind the referee review monitor and was not seen again to the cheers of the crowd. The guest’s intervention did nothing to change the fortunes of the hosts as they stumbled to a 4-2 defeat, jeopardising their direct qualification prospects. “It’s something I’ve not seen in my 36 years at Cardiff City,” said Wayne Nash, the club’s head of operations who also works as a security manager for the Football Association of Wales and Uefa. “We’ve had a stray dog on the pitch but this was something new, a freak of nature.
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“The stadium is close to allotments and railway sidings and we know rats can be problematic. The railway bankings can be infested with rats. We know they are in the area and we do have the odd sighting of them. But we work closely with our pest control partners and do everything we can to keep them away. They say you are never too far from a rat, especially in cities, and
this one managed to get in. People have seen a rat on the pitch as quite funny, but it does have serious undertones. If I was the ball boy or Brennan Johnson I would have run a mile,” he added.
The story goes that Garrincha asked to adopt the stray that intruded the quarterfinal game. The Brazilian magazine O Cruzeiro arranged for the dog to be brought from Chile to Brazil and he named the dog Bi, short for bicampeonato, literally translated as championship. Will one of Kevin de Bruyne or his men do the same?
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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