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Joel Embiid likes Cristiano Ronaldo, is hated on Twitter

Joel Embiid, Bill Self

AP

AP

Joel Embiid may have played his college basketball on American soil, and he may be planning out how to make a career out of playing in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean that Embiid is American.

He’s Cameroonian, and he grew up as a fan of the soccer club Real Madrid.

I bring this up because last night, as the USA were in the midst of putting the finishing touches on gracing Portugal with the gift of a draw in World Cup group play, Embiid tweeted out his support for Cristiano Ronaldo, the banged-up Portuguese superstar that delivered a sparkling cross to the head of Silvestre Vilera in the 95th minute:

Ronaldo my boy #halamadrid

— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) June 22, 2014

As you might imagine, the backlash from American basketball fans still stinging from that last-second goal was vitriolic (Note: this is only the PG-13 stuff):

@JoelEmbiid #gregoden

— charles calloway (@c3calloway) June 22, 2014

“@JoelEmbiid: Ronaldo my boy #halamadrid” praying the Sixers pass on this guy.

— Sean Donnelly (@_SeanDonnelly) June 22, 2014

And then we get to this guy, who spent the entirety of Sunday night ripping Embiid on twitter. This was the cleanest tweet he sent:

@JoelEmbiid if it wasn’t for the USA you’d still be living in a third world country, show some respect.

— Rich Homie John (@Johnsiebels) June 23, 2014

There was a lot of blowback for what he had to say, which resulted in one of the most ironic tweets I’ve ever come across:

Wow thr backlash you get on twitter from people you don’t know is mind blowing, guess I’m twitter famous finally?

— Rich Homie John (@Johnsiebels) June 23, 2014