Even though football is called the beautiful game, it has still had it’s share of dirty moments. Here is a list of seven of the most aggressive and dirty footballer’s in the history of the game.
Diego Costa
The Chelsea star had already built up a reputation as an aggressive footballer during his time at Atletico Madrid, but since his move to the Premier League, the Spain international has been involved in one controversy or the other all the time.
Costa is a master at getting under the skin of his opponents and has all the little tricks in his sleeve, from nudging to head- butts, the Blues striker is genious both in front of the goal and at annoying his opponents into making mistakes.
Pepe
The Portugese International needs no introduction, if you have seen him play then his passion speaks for itself, but the Real Madrid defender is also very hot-headed.
Just Youtube Pepe and you will find an abundance of video’s of him pushing, kicking and attacking rival players.
Joey Barton
From fighting the entire Manchester City Squad to a 12 game ban to stubbing a Cigar in a team-mates eye to assaulting a 15-year old Everton fan to getting naked in front of again Everton fans, Joey has done it all.
Love him or hate him, but he is a legend, a God in being dirty both on and off the pitch.
Eric Cantona
Now what do you say about Cantona that hasn’t already been said, The bad-boy of football was handed a 9 month ban for kicking a Crystal Palace supporter’s chest.
Even before his move to England, the Frenchman was always involved in some incident or the other and was banned for a month after he threw his shirt at the referee and kicked the ball into the crowd.
Sergio Ramos
The Real Madrid captain has collected 21 red-cards in his career, four of them were in El Clasico making him the record holder for most red-cards in La Liga history.
Ramos is very aggressive on the pitch, and does not like being cut by an opponent player. He once took on David Villa, Lionel Messi, Carlos Puyol and Xavi all on kicking and pushing the Barcelona players and was subsequently sent-off.
Luis Suárez
When not scoring goals, the Barcelona striker likes biting opponents, punching them or just simply nudging them.
One of the most prolific stiker of the modern game has always been surrounded with controversies, he bit Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic and PSV midfielder Otman Bakkal, punched Chile defender Gonzalo Jara, refused to shake hands with Patrice Evra.
Suárez has missed a combined 45 games as a direct result of controversies since 2010.
Marco Matterazi
A World Cup winning defender, he technique for defence included generous elbows, kicks and stomps that resulted in several red cards over his career.
He stomped Benni McCarthy, hit Andriy Shevchenko in the groin when the player was already down and attacked his team-mate Mario Balotelli in the tunnel after the game, oh wait did we forget the Zidane headbutt.