BY JAMES ROSS – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
What’s a story without a villain? Sports is more fun when there are players to hate and to cheer against. With that in mind, here is my list of the 10 most despised players in the BPL.
Did I miss any? Add yours in the comments below!
10. Nik Bendtner (Arsenal-on loan at Juventus)
Even though he is technically on loan outside the BPL (as is one other player on this list, and you get one guess on that player) he’s still the property of Arsenal. Bendtner is a bit of a different fish than the others here. He’s just basically wildly arrogant. And highly mistaken about his own ability. Check out this quote from 2009, after stating he would be World Player of the Year, someday. “I see my own ability and I can’t see anything that tells me it won’t happen.”
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Bendtner got into an on field altercation with teammate Emmanuel Adebayor during a 2008 League Cup match against Spurs, ending up with a cut nose after Adebayor head butted him and called him a variation of dung. Last season, at Sunderland, he and fellow bad boy Lee Cattermole were arrested for vandalizing a number of vehicles in Newcastle. And Bendtner earned a massive fine for showing his green Paddy Power underwear after scoring a goal in last year’s Euro 2012 tournament. I’m sure Juventus fans will have a head scratcher from big Nik before the season is over.
9. Cheick Tiote (Newcastle)
Newcastle midfield hardman has come about his reputation the good old-fashioned way. He whacks people. Hard. Tiote, who racked up 25 yellow cards in his first 50 BPL matches, was sent off for a violent conduct last weekend against Newcastle, seconds after being awarded a free kick. Teammate James Perch stated afterwards “You take that side of the game out of Cheick and you don’t have the same player”. However, manager Alan Pardew sees things a bit differently, asking his midfield hardman to change his ways. Undoubtedly, only the most physical of players would relish a battle with the pugnacious Ivorian.
8. Emmanuel Adebayor (Tottenham)
The clash with teammate Nik Bendtner (whom he also described as “an inferior player”) has already been highlighted, but there is more to the Adebayor saga. After transferring to Manchester City in 2009, and starting brightly for his new club, Adebayor and City came up against Arsenal in a home match. After scoring against his old team, Adebayor raced the entire length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the Arsenal supporters, infuriating them to no end, and getting Adebayor a yellow card for unsporting behaviour. Additionally, he was charged post match with kicking Robin Van Persie in the face, and received a three match ban for that offence. And he is starting to complain about his lack of playing time at new club Spurs, which should surprise nobody.
7. Ashley Cole (Chelsea)
Arguably the best left fullback in the game today, Ash Cole has had no shortage of controversies in his career. He’s been caught cheating behind his (now ex) wife Cheryl’s back twice. He once shot a work experience student with a loaded air gun at Chelsea’s training ground. And, of course, he’s been labeled a “Judas” for leaving Arsenal for crosstown rivals Chelsea in 2006. Cole further enhanced his dislikable pedigree recently, with his twitter based tirade against the English FA for their handling of the John Terry-Anton Ferdinand situation. And he can be a nasty tackler too. Just ask Man United striker Javier Hernandez.
6.Lee Cattermole (Sunderland)
With one notch already highlighted (his car damaging spree last year in Newcastle with Nik Bendtner), Cattermole, like Cheick Tiote, earns his reputation the hard way, by whacking people. Again. And again. And at age 24, he’s got plenty of nastiness left in him, it would appear. This season, he’s been sent off once, as well as a single caution. In the previous four campaigns, Cattermole racked up an astonishing 41 cautions and six red cards. Here’s some first hand evidence of Cattermole’s somewhat disagreeable personality.
5. Mario Balotelli (Manchester City)
“Why Always Me?” was the question posed on Balotelli’s T-shirt he displayed after scoring a goal last season in Manchester City’s 6-1 demolition of United. Well Mario, here’s a few reasons. Balotelli was caught throwing darts at City’s youth players because he was “bored”. He set off fireworks in his own home’s bathroom, setting the house ablaze the night before the United game. He once tried to punch teammate Jerome Boateng in training. And his red card (last season) for stomping on Scott Parker’s head was a particularly distasteful event. He’s an incredibly talented player, but you kind of get the feeling the sky is the limit with Mario, and his potential next transgression.
4. Carlos Tevez ((Manchester City)
The second City bad boy, Tevez earned his rep for two well publicized events. First, he left Manchester United for crosstown rivals Manchester City in 2009, which infuriated the United fan base. Not content with alienating one half of Manchester, Tevez became involved in one of the most highly controversial issues in soccer’s history, when he refused to enter a Champions League match in Munich (against Bayern) last season. Tevez subsequently, after being suspended by his manager Roberto Mancini, went home to Argentina and spent five latent months there, before returning to City amongst the requisite apologies. His return forced manager Mancini to retract his statement that Tevez “would never play for the club again”. And sharply divided City fans on whether Tevez really deserved another chance. One BPL title later, and one would think that if Tevez can keep his nose clean, all in due time will be forgotten.
3. Joey Barton (Queen’s Park Rangers-on loan at Marseille)
Probably, in the grand scheme of things, the biggest jerk in soccer history. But there is a complexity to Barton that makes him a bit more intriguing. His Nietzschean tweets may be a bit pretentious, but he is, in one way or another, awfully entertaining. Here’s a list of some of his more “immortal” moments.
In 2004, at a Man City Christmas party, he stubbed out a lit cigar in teammate Jamie Tandy’s eye. He later punched Morten Gamst Pedersen in the chest during a match. In the summer of 2005, Manchester City sent him home from a tour of Thailand after he assaulted a 15-year-old Everton fan. In May 2007, he assaulted teammate Ousame Dabo in a training ground bustup, knocking Dabo unconscious, with Barton continuing to rain blows down on his head as Dabo lay prone on the ground. This coming six months after Barton assaulted a man in Liverpool, which resulted in six months jail time for the City midfielder. And then, during the final game of last season, he assaulted three different City players in about 90 seconds, earning red for his first transgression against Carlos Tevez, and then kicking Sergio Aguero in the back of the legs, and then attempting a head butt on Vincent Kompany. For that incident, a massive 12 game suspension. Here is the video of his madness at City last season.
2. Luis Suarez (Liverpool)
Luis Suarez seems to raise the ire of almost anyone who isn’t a Liverpool fan. And he really does work the gamut of possibilities. Most famous for his eight match ban for racially abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, Suarez pulls his other misdemeanors from a rather broad palette. He is the guy who was red carded in the last World Cup for intentional handball (which prevented the winning goal), and this act resulted in a Suarez-less Uruguay making it to the semifinals. So, while his act was vilified outside of his home country, he was undoubtedly (and perhaps rightly so) lauded as a hero in Uruguay for his “sacrifice”.
Before joining Liverpool, he plied his trade at Dutch side Ajax Amsterdam. His then manager, Dutch legend Marco Van Basten, described Suarez as “hard to work with” due to his propensity for taking silly yellow cards. And the fact that he bit an opponent during an Ajax match. Yep, he bit an opponent (video below). Add all this to the fact that Suarez is probably the worst diver in the BPL (witness his pathetic dive a couple of weeks ago that, somehow, avoided him being booked) and you’ve got a recipe for a healthy level of dislike from almost all soccer fans.
1. John Terry (Chelsea)
Chelsea and England have both been captained by this “warrior”, and Terry is a great center back, but his arrogance and borderline sociopathic behaviour have to give John George Terry the crown as the most reviled player in the BPL. Terry, of course, is most famous for his recent trial regarding his racial abuse of Anton Ferdinand. His four match ban was seen as very soft (see Suarez’s double length ban for, in my humble opinion, a lesser transgression) and his subsequent renouncement of his England duties after the fact has largely been viewed as yet another selfish act. But Terry’s laundry list of transgressions dates back to his younger days.
In 2001, Terry was arrested outside a nightclub for attacking one of the club’s employees. As a result, he was banned from the English national team for a period, which led to his exclusion from the 2002 World Cup squad. On the day after 9/11, Terry and three of his teammates were involved in a five hour drinking binge at Heathrow, and Terry took to taunting some American tourists about the attack the day before. And then there is the affair he had with then teammate Wayne Bridge’s ex. He ended up getting her pregnant, and this resulted in an abortion. And this was done, of course, behind his wife’s back, though Terry had pledged a few years earlier to stop fooling around behind her back. Oh yes, he was also once fined 60 pounds for parking in a disabled parking spot. This, on its own, isn’t a huge deal. But given the other excesses, perhaps it’s an exclamation point?
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