Blerand Hoxha struck Coach Vince Villanueva with a water bottle multiple times at a boys’ soccer game in Manassas, Virginia, on Aug. 26, police said. (Mugshot: Prince William County Police Department; screenshot via WTTG)
A man allegedly beat a soccer coach with a metal bottle at a kids’ game.
Blerand Hoxha, 45, is charged with malicious wounding, said the Prince William County Police Department. Officers said they responded at 1:47 p.m. on Saturday to Hellwig Park in Manassas, Virginia, located around 35 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.
Hoxha, one of the attendees at a soccer game, struck a 46-year-old man in the head with a metal water bottle multiple times and then fled on foot, according to police.
Officers found him in the area and arrested him without incident, they said.
Vince Villanueva has since identified himself as the coach. He spoke to Washington Fox affiliate WTTG, telling the outlet that he had never spoken to Hoxha before and had just found out the defendant’s name on the day of the interview.
Villanueva, a coach at Potomac Senior High School, said he was filling in for a friend during a boys’ team scrimmage on Saturday.
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“The father, I guess, had come over to talk to the son and then when I went to get him to put him back into the game, I said ‘Are you okay?’ And he said, ‘No he’s not,’ and he said, ‘Coach, can I talk to you real quick?’ And then everything went downhill from there,” said Villanueva, who was sporting black eyes and a scrape across the bridge of his nose.
Villanueva said the team had been losing, in the words of the outlet, “pretty badly.” After the attack, off-duty police officers at the event tried to get children to a safe space and “calm the situation down,” he said.
Asked if he had anything to say to Hoxha, Villanueva said no.
“That’s something that’s really out of my control,” he said.
A CT scan has revealed Villanueva sustained a fracture to his orbital wall, according to local NBC affiliate WRC.
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