Riccardo Meggiorini described his actions in saving a woman from her attacker in the street, but the Chievo star insists “I am no hero.”
The 31-year-old rushed out of his home at 2.30am when he heard screams and pinned the man to the ground until police arrived.
“I will admit, I’d never sprinted 200 metres at 3am before. I didn’t even get to warm up!” he joked in La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Riccardo Meggiorini described his actions in saving a woman from her attacker in the street, but the Chievo star insists “I am no hero.”
The 31-year-old rushed out of his home at 2.30am when he heard screams and pinned the man to the ground until police arrived.
“I will admit, I’d never sprinted 200 metres at 3am before. I didn’t even get to warm up!” he joked in La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“I was asleep, our place is on the fourth floor, then heard a woman screaming outside. It’s often noisy around here after people have had a few too many drinks, but this time it sounded different. She seemed distraught.
“She was shouting ‘Leave me alone, go away’ and tried to run, but a man kept chasing her. I threw on a shirt, shorts and shoes to run down while my girlfriend Silvia called the police.
“As I was running, I could see he was manhandling her, her shirt was torn and then he slammed her up against a parked car. So I barged him over and we all ended up on the ground.”
Would it not have been better to punch the attacker rather than knock him down with a shoulder?
“I have never thrown a punch in my life, not even when I was a kid. I don’t even know how to punch properly. I didn’t have my phone with me, but I knew the police were on the way, so I pinned him down and tried to make sure he didn’t get away.
“The police didn’t recognise me, they just asked for my details and a statement. I don’t feel like a hero: I simply did something anyone would do.
“I can’t even stand seeing violence against women on TV or reading about it in the paper. Seeing it out of my window, I simply had to intervene.
“Afterwards an elderly couple leaned over their balcony and told me I did a good thing, so that was nice. I was very tense, because until those things happen, you don’t know how your heartrate is going to rush.
“At the end I still got back to sleep and in the morning had my usual training session. I chatted about it with a couple of teammates, but it was already behind me then.”
It’s reported the girl knew her attacker and they had been out drinking heavily before the incident. Both were fined €103 for public drunkenness.