Ten football players you wouldn’t want to cross.
10. Temuri Ketsbaia
The former Georgian international wasn’t renowned as a particularly nasty player, and his disciplinary record was actually quite good, but he will forever be remember for one sheer moment of madness when he lost his head and kicked the living daylights out of an advertising board after scoring a goal.
9. Andoni Goikoetxea
Dubbed “The Butcher from Bilbao” during his time as a player. He famously almost crippled Diego Maradona with a brutal tackle from behind in 1984 and was so proud of his handiwork that he kept “the boot he had used to destroy…(Maradona’s) ankle ligaments” in a glass case in his home.
Later that same season he would go in on Bernd Schuster with another terrible challenge that virtually ended the German’s career after damaging his knee so badly that he was never the same player.
He is now the manager of the Equatorial Guinean national team.
8. Edmundo
Nicknamed “The Animal” during his playing days, he never quite lived up the the expectations placed on him in Europe because of his disciplinary problems on the pitch and his party lifestyle off it.
He was once almost prosecuted for getting a chimpanzee drunk at his son’s birthday party, he managed to prove that those were false allegations, but he also later escaped a lengthy prison sentence after being accused of a drink driving incident in which three people lost their lives.
7. Eric Cantona
As brilliant as he was, the mardy Frenchman was also prone to bouts of explosive behaviour. Before coming to England he would frequently have run ins with management, opposing fans, and even his own teammates – punching one in the face and kicking another.
Whilst at Auxerre he earned a one month ban for a rash tackle on an opposing player, and then another month long furlough for kicking a ball into his own crowd.
However, his maddest moment came on one infamous night in 1995 where he launched into the crowd during a game with Crystal Palace to kung-fu kick a fan in the chest.
6. Paolo Di Canio
The Italian was already a well known explosive character before he came to England, and even got involved in some on field scuffles during his Old Firm clashes in Scotland.
He gained notoriety in the Premier League when he pushed over referee Paul Alcock, and once back in Italy he let his fascist roots boil over with an ill-advised nazi salute after the Rome derby. But his bad behaviour spilled over to his managerial career where he would frequently get physical with his players both at Swindon and Sunderland.
5. Vinnie Jones
As part of Wimbledon’s infamous Crazy Gang in the ’80s and ’90s he was frequently involved in some less than savoury behaviour. He was once red carded after five seconds and even grabbed Gazza by the…unmentionables.
No stranger to an early shower, his biggest blunder was appearing in a compilation video of “football’s hardest men” in 1992 where he offered sage advice to other budding “hard men”. The video was found, scrapped, and he was slapped with a £20,000 fine and a six month suspended sentence.
4. Joey Barton
The one-cap England man has had his fair share of problems since being hailed as a prodigious talent at Manchester City. Kicking a teammate in the face, and stubbing a cigar out in the eye of another, Barton landed himself a stretch in prison for an assault whilst on a night out in 2008.
Not as angry on the pitch as he used to be, however, he is still prone to the odd punch and sly kick, as witnessed on the final day of the 2011/12 season. Thankfully now restricts his vitriol to Twitter.
3. Gennaro Gattuso
A brilliantly combative midfielder in his pomp, but he was far too easily combustible and frequently landed himself into trouble with hit short temper.
Whether getting in Simon Poulson’s grill, or headbutting Joe Jordan, he was so mean that he probably even punched the flowers!
His microscopic fuse even cost him time as a manager, when he was sent off to the stands after just one and a half games in charge of Serie B side Palermo this season.
2. Roy Keane
It’s hard to know where to start when talking about Keane’s anger issues. Rumours of numerous bar fights during his formative years seemed to only help him transform into one of the Premier League’s most feared competitors.
Famed for ending Alfie Inge Haaland’s career intentionally, he would snap on demand and collected several more suspensions before terrifying the lift out of his players and journalists as a manager.
1. Roy McDonough
McDonough, or ‘Red Card Roy’ as he was known, may not be a very famous name, probably because he spent more time concentrating on how angry he could be rather than improving his actual game.
He is the current record holder for most dismissals in a professional career with 22 red cards, and even thought it would be a good idea to write a book about it as if it were a record to be proud of.
Now a talking head on Twitter.