Football fans reacted in shock and disgust when video footage showed a grounded, outnumbered pitch invader having his hair pulled and being dealt various cheap shots from behind during the Milan derby.
Fighting for the Serie A title with their bitter rivals, AC Milan beat reigning champions Inter 2-1 at the San Siro to pull within one point of them in the title race.
At one point, however, a pitch invader managed to storm onto the pitch filming himself, run down the touchline and then along the back of one of the goals while evading stewards to huge cheers from the crowd.
As video footage shows, however, one steward got very heavy-handed with the young man once a flock of six finally managed to get him to the ground and contain him. Football fans took to social media to voice their disgust, with Milan players Theo Hernandez and Alessio Romagnoli intervening and protesting against the brutality.
"The anger that six of them had with him by pulling his hair is disgusting," remarked one Twitter user. "And I hadn't even seen the cheap shots."
"Can we track down these filthy stewards pulling hair and throwing punches at the boy who is still and helpless on the ground?" another asked, while tagging both clubs.
"Find the steward and sue him. Punching that guy while he is crushed by four others, the pieces of sh*t," came a reply to this.
"I hope that he [the steward] will be sent to trial and that they make him share a cell with someone bigger than him," wished a separate party.
"Blocking is one thing, [but] hitting him and pulling his hair is foul. Congratulations to the stewards," someone else concluded sarcastically.
When a Milan supporter called the attack "indecent", a rival Inter counterpart said that indecent was the way there were two pitch invasions and eight substitutions during the match but only five minutes of added time.
"Yesterday there were two invasions of the pitch and the Milan ultras [went down the terraces] to beat some Inter fans up. But the problem is that there is a bottle of water in a child's backpack," remarked one tired matchgoer as per petty stadium protocol.