“A Mississauga [Ontario] soccer coach has been charged with assaulting a 12-year-old girl playing for the opposing team in a weekend soccer match.”

“Halton Police arrested 39-year-old Frank Pesce, of Spangler Dr., earlier this week after the bizarre incident, which occurred on a Milton soccer field during a game between two Mississauga under-12 squads Saturday afternoon. Pesce is the coach of the North Mississauga Soccer Club Panthers.”

“Police and parents say a man raced onto the field during a stoppage in the game and assaulted the girl,” The Mississauga News reports.

‘The suspect struck the victim, but she sustained no lingering effects,’ said Halton police Sergeant Val Hay.

Christine McNamee, the victim’s mother, said her daughter was having a ‘memorable’ game, scoring twice and putting her team in the lead late in the game.

‘Everything was all great. She was having the game of her life before this despicable thing happened,’ the tearful mother told The News yesterday. ‘My little girl went straight to the ground in pain.’

So? ‘S part of the game, honey! Just hard-nosed soccer! Rub some dirt on it and get your ass back in there. Wimp! I mean, this ain’t no amateur little girls’ league we’re running here…!

(…Beg pardon….? Er, oh… Uh, well then nevermind….)

The girl was taken to hospital and treated for bruised ribs, McNamee said.

Although police wouldn’t get into the specifics of the incident, parents claim the man approached the player while the other players and referees were attending to two injured players on the field.

With his elbow, he struck the girl in the stomach, parents say.

‘It was pretty sickening,’ said McNamee, adding her daughter is still extremely distraught.

But as of yesterday, the accused, who has been with the club for at least a year, is still on the sidelines coaching the team.

Brian Avey, executive director of the Ontario Soccer Association (OSA), said this is the first time in the association’s history that a coach has been criminally charged with assaulting a player.

‘This is a bit of a precedent setter because we’ve never had a child assaulted,’ Avey said. ‘We don’t have any rules or procedures for it.’

Under OSA policy, a coach is immediately suspended ‘from all soccer-related activity’ if he assaults a game official.

But Avey said there is nothing in the policy that addresses a coach suspected of assaulting a player.

Huh? Oh, well that explains it, then. Clearly, if you have no written policy against an opposing coach dropping a 12-year old girl with a sucker punch, then you’re powerless to do anything about it.

After all, you have your rules, right? — and law and order must be civilized… You can’t just go about making up punishments on the spot, can you?

That’s just not the way you operate there in Ontario.

…Whereas we here in the states would’ve unleashed our instant cowboy justice all over this jaggoff — meaning that a bunch of angry parents would’ve beaten his ass so badly that doctors would still be spackling and stitching the cleat marks stamped into his testicles…

…But that’s just us. And we’re notoriously barbaric, anyway…

Avey said he’ll be reviewing the incident today to decide whether or not the coach should be disciplined or suspended.

The OSA has scheduled a disciplinary hearing for Pesce on Aug. 15.

A shocked McNamee believes the police charge is enough evidence for a suspension.

‘How are parents of players going to feel knowing this man has been charged with assaulting a girl player?’ she asked.

Sorry, Miss. Them’s the breaks. Without rules, we’re not a society at all.