Emilio Izaguirre admits he still doesn't know what started the trouble during Motagua's derby match with Olimpia last year that left him with shards of glass in his eye and tragically claimed the lives of three supporters.

The horrific scenes played out during the Honduran Superclasico when supporters battled one another and attacked the players' bus, leaving Izaguirre and other teammates injured. At least seven other fans were badly wounded as the ugly incident worsened.

Izaguirre, 34, looks back on that August afternoon with regret and sadness. And he prays nothing similar ever happens again. "The incident at Olimpia was difficult," he told Herald and Times Sport. "It started from rocks being thrown at the bus and a bit of glass hit my face and caught my eye.

"I cleaned it out and luckily it wasn’t an overly serious injury. Never before had anything like this happened in Honduras but it happened and I hope to God nothing like it ever happens again. I don’t know why it did, whether anti-social people went into the wrong area and trouble broke out, I'm not sure. But it’s in the past."

Izaguirre has played in - and suffered defeats in - a number of Celtic vs Rangers derbies in Glasgow. Though, despite those losses, the Superclasico may be the lasting negative memory from his career when asked about 'derby day'.

But rivalries and football in general, Izaguirre says, is much different in Latin America than in Scotland. "The Montagua/Olimpia derby is very different to Celtic and Rangers in many aspects. Here the game is very interrupted. One foul and there’s time-wasting and the game slows down whereas [in Scotland] it was never like that.

"At Celtic it was just everyone going for it, whether you’re winning or losing. It’s different because of how the quality of pitches are too, just everything. In Scotland there are 60,000 fans in one stadium, 50,000 in the other but here you would never reach those numbers. The absolute maximum would be 28,000 – 30,000 fans in the stadium in our country. Latin American football is really different to European football and European derbies, but at the same time there’s always the desire to win and pain from a defeat because a derby is a derby."