Gennaro Gattuso
Looks mean, doesn't he? That's because he is.
Gattuso, who is currently a free agent after leaving Italian side AC Milan, is world-renowned for his aggressive, hard-tackling style of play. He's also world-renowned for being as mad as a stabbed badger, his latest offence to humanity being that of throat-thrusting 60-year-old Tottenham coach Joe Jordan during a UEFA Champions League game against Tottenham Hotspur before attempting to headbutt him.
The 34-year-old Italian is a law unto himself; his foul temper has often gotten the better of him- and anyone who should be unlucky enough to stand in his way, such as when Ajax's Zlatan Ibrahimovic incurred his wrath in September 2003 and ended up getting a deft backhander from good ol' Gennaro.
Oh yeah, and he also ran around the pitch in his underwear after winning the World Cup in 2006. Totally normal behaviour of course.
Joey Barton
We either love to hate him- for being a cynical thug who makes a fool of himself for his complete disregard for match conduct, and for being a great and pretentious copypaster of famous philosophical quotes on Twitter, or just plain love him- for being so intriguing and entertaining to watch. There's seldom a dull moment with Barton on the pitch.
English central midfielder Barton is not a bad player in terms of his skill, but he scores a "Filthy" on the dirty player scale, amassing 39 yellow cards and 3 reds during his time at Manchester City alone. It also appears he revels in scrapping with the opposition- or even his own team mates.
His latest bouts of fistycuffs include punching Blackburn winger Morten Gamst Pedersen in the chest, chokeslamming Abu Diaby, getting sent off for tussling with Gervinho and, most recently and significantly, taking a swing with his elbow at Carlos Tevez's already traumatised face during the last, title-deciding match of this past season against his former club Man City. In this same match he then decided to deliver a dead-leg to Sergio Aguero with a deft knee to his quad, and rounded off his stellar performance by trying to nut Vincent Kompany on his way off the pitch.
Oh, and in 2008 he was sent down for six months for assault. Fantastic.
John Terry
Chelsea's most successful Chelsea captain may also be their most talked about- and for all the wrong reasons, I assure you.
The former England captain became one of football's most notorious love rats when he was found to have had a four-month affair with Vanessa Perroncel- his Chelsea team-mate Wayne Bridge's girlfriend- back in 2009. This pretty much finished off Wayne Bridge's England career and his Chelsea career- has not played for England since and has since left Chelsea.
Terry is due to stand trial for allegedly racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand during a match earlier in the season. He has subsequently alienated himself from yet another England colleague- Anton's brother Rio Ferdinand.
Just when you thought you couldn't dislike him enough, Terry has recently topped his ire-raising shenanigans by getting himself banned from the Champions League final this year- for giving Barcelona winger Alexis Sanchez a cheeky dead leg during the semis- and yet still managing to find himself celebrating his team's final victory and lifting the trophy in his full kit, despite having being absent from the game. I reckon that's pretty hilarious.
Jermaine Pennant
You might be surprised that I have added this somewhat underwhelming Stoke City winger. It is not his on-the-pitch performances that have earned him notoriety, however; he actually has quite a history of misadventure when he's not plying his craft.
His penchant seems to be for automobile-based foolery. In 2004 he was banned from driving for sixteen months for driving on the wrong side of the road. A year later, he was charged with drink-driving after wrapping his shiny Mercedes around a lamp post, which earned him the right to wear an electronic tracking tag as part of his terms of parole. The best part of that story was that he told the coppers who attended the scene that he was Ashley Cole.
He was recently reported to have abandoned his Porsche at a train station in Zaragoza, Spain while playing for Real Zaragoza. The Porsche was littered with months of parking tickets. What a lad.
Mario Balotelli
Footballer, philanthropist, rebel and defender of the weak: this is the cult of personality known only as Mario Balotelli.
At only 21 years of age the Manchester City striker has already become somewhat of an enigma. His numerous in-game bookings and suspensions have earned him much controversy in their own right, but his off-the-pitch antics are eccentric to say the least, and have fast become the stuff of urban legend.
It is said that, when police arrived at the scene of Balotelli and his crashed Audi R8- mere weeks after his arrival at Manchester City in 2010- and asked him why he was carrying £5000 in cash in his back pocket, he casually responded "because I am rich". He has also been sighted handing out large amounts of cash to homeless people, and he was reported to have returned a truanting schoolboy back to his school, where Super Mario proceeded to confront the bullies who were keeping the poor boy away.
As recently as yesterday, Mario Balotelli told the press, in response to questions about racism at the Euro 2012 games in Poland and Ukraine, that he would end up in prison if he anyone throughs bananas at him, because he would kill them.
Amidst all this he seems able to score goals whenever he feels like it- he found the net 17 times last season, despite all of his suspensions and banishments to the bench for acting like a wally.
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