Brussels attack strikes close to home for Lobo Spangenberg

Simon Spangenberg came to UNM from Belgium to study mechanical engineering and play soccer. (Courtesy Of UNM)ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The messages from 5,000 miles away first arrived on his phone in the middle of the night, as Simon Spangenberg slept.

He had left Brussels last year to come play for the New Mexico Lobos soccer team. Albuquerque was a whole new world to him, so different, so sunny.

But on Tuesday, while morning broke in New Mexico, the chaos of a dark day in Belgium had begun to settle into a harsh reality.

There had been three explosions, two at the airport and one at a metro station near where Spangenberg’s mother, Monique Pariel, works.

She was his first call. She was OK.…