No, they were not playing rugby at the St Mary’s Stadium, in Southampton; and no, New Zealand was not one of the teams either!
However, as Graziano Pelle scored a thumping header, against AFC Bournemouth, he immediately went off to celebrate in the typical way that the New Zealand rugby team prepares for each of its matches — by doing the Haka dance (or a very poor imitation of it, anyway).
Southampton FC won the match 2-0 in spite of going down to 10 men in the second half, but the talk of the day seems to be the Haka celebration by the Italian forward.
The moment he scored the goal, Pelle ran off towards the Southampton technical area, to celebrate with physio Graham Staddon, who is in fact, a New Zealander. You can watch Pelle’s celebration below:
As celebrA? Graziano Pell su gol. Con el famoso ‘haka’. pic.twitter.com/CfmPt1byTk
.
a Cracks de FA?tbol (@CracksDel_Fut) November 1, 2015
The Haka dance is performed by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, before every match. It is a war cry (or dance) that used to be performed by the Maori tribe of New Zealand, before going to war, as a show of strength, or to intimidate the opponents. Well, New Zealand won the 2015 Rugby World Cup on Saturday, beating Australia in the finals, and you can see for yourself in the video below, why the Aussies might have felt rather intimidated by the All Blacks.