The 25 Most Consistently Dirty Players in European Football

We all have our opinion on who the dirtiest players in European Football are. Some think Gary Medel of Sevilla, others think Nigel De Jong and a few reckon Joey Barton (and, if you could get a yellow card for Twitter idiocy, they'd probably be right).

However, these opinions are mainly based on famous incidents of dirty play, not consistent fouls picked up week-in, week-out.

It's probably best that we point out now we mean "dirty" as in commits a lot fouls, not players who gets muddy a lot.  

So, we've been making a list (and checking it twice) to find out who are consistently the dirtiest players in Europe's top leagues. We don't want any flash-in-the-pan, big-game-only, rule infringers that have one one moment of arm-biting madness every now and again (yes, you may well look away, Luis Suarez). We want the players who regularly deliver horrific tackles, whatever the weather.

So here's how it's going down.

We're judging on the average amount of fouls every player committed each game, over the course of the 2012-13 season in their respective domestic leagues. 

If the players are tied on the same number of average fouls per game, it goes down to appearances. The more matches you’ve managed to keep up an overall high rate of fouls, the more deserving you are to be classed as the dirtier player.

We're sourcing from all players in Europe’s top 5 leagues (English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1. Sorry Scotland, maybe next year).

Just a final note, the players included have played more than the average number of appearances in each of their leagues. We haven’t included the likes of Pescara’s Danilo Soddimo, who only made one appearance all season as substitute in the 73^rd minute versus Roma, in November, and in those 17 minutes managed to commit 5 fouls.

Lee Cattermole must have Soddimo’s poster on his bedroom wall.

So let's get ready for more fouls than a protest at Ewood Park (that's one of those jokes that only works when read out due to the fowl/foul spelling situation).

All statistics are thanks to whoscored.com, unless stated otherwise.  

25. Victor Sanchez

Club: RCD Espanyol

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.3

League Appearances: 33

Espanyol's Victor Sanchez kicks us off (and in the back of the legs) with 2.3 fouls a game.

Despite only just making the top 25, Sanchez is the only person who regularly plays in defence in the whole list. The other 24 are all midfielders or strikers.

So just because you're a professional footballer, it doesn't mean you can tackle (See: Paul Scholes). 

24. Tomas Pina

Club: Mallorca

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.3

League Appearances: 32(2)

If La Liga was won by most fouls committed, Tomas Pina would has single-handedly saved his side Mallorca from relegation last season. But, for some reason, the winner is decided by the boring old "who scored the most goals" system. Thanks a lot, FIFA. 

Pina is kept off of the bottom of T25MCDPIEF (The 25 Most Consistently Dirty Players In European Football, we cannot be bothered in keeping writing it all out again) by beating Sanchez by a single substitute appearance. 

We doubt Pina will make next year's T25MCPDIE, however. Not because he's cleaning his act up, but because Mallorca did indeed get relegated to Spain's Segunda division. 

23. Milorad Pekovic

Club: Greuther Furth

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 14(4)

Furth's Montenegrin midfielder, Milorad Pekovic, managed to commit an average of 2.4 fouls every game, for 14 matches.

Furth, obviously impressed with his level of rule-breaking consistency, sold him to Hansa Rostock of Germany's third tier in May.

22. Szabolcs Huszti

Club: Hannover 96

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 19(2)

Hannover's winger and spellcheck's worst nightmare, Szabolcs Huszti, is in at No. 22.

The Hungarian international managed to keep up his rate of 2.4 fouls a game for his 21 Bundesliga appearances and is the first entrant of Germany's top flight in T25MCDPIE (for the record, we've dropped the "F" and we're not pronouncing it as initials but as "Tea-twenty-five-Mac-dee-pie").

21. Giampiero Pinzi

Club: Udinese Calcio

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 32(2)

Our first Italian entry into T25MCDPIE is Udinese's Giampiero Pinzi with a respectable (in this list's standings, not in the rules of football) 2.4 fouls per game in Serie A.

Despite committing over 80 fouls in one league campaign, Pinzi didn't get sent off once (See: Miracles).

20. Cheick Tiote

Club: Newcastle United

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 22(2)

You thought we'd forgotten about the Premier League, didn't you?

Well, it seems like the Premier League forgot about fouls, there are only three players from England's top flight in this list and the first one is Newcastle's Cheick Tiote.

With seven league yellow cards and one red last season, Tiote needs to sort himself out. Or, in other words, he needs to Cheick himself before he wrecks himself. 

19. Ricardo Faty

Club: Ajaccio

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 22(3)

The Senegalese midfielder edges above Cheick Tiote by a single substitute appearance.

We don't blame Ricardo Faty for being in this list, because when your last name's "Faty," you're going to have to hack a few ankles in life.  

18. Jermaine Jones

Club: Schalke 04

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 23(2) 

As the only North American in this list (the continent with the least consistently dirty players in Europe's top leagues, apart from those gentle Oceanians), Jermaine Jones shoulder barges into the list, and doesn't get the ball, with an average of 2.4 fouls a game from his 25 Bundesliga 2012-13 appearances.  

17. Edgar Prib

Club: Greuther Furth

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 25(2)

Greuther Furth are one of the three teams who have more than one player in the, as we're now calling it to save time, "Consistently Dirty 25."

With 2.4 fouls in every one of his 27 appearances last season, Edgar Prib proved he's not prim and proper. If Prib is as much a fan of alliteration as he is of bad challenges, he will have loved that previous sentence. 

16. Alessandro Diamanti

Club: Bologna

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 33(1)

Bologna's Alessandro Diamanti just misses out on the top 15 of the "Dirty 25" (we've now dropped the "Consistent" and are considering doing a list of 30 next year as "Dirty 30" has a better ring to it).

Maybe, if reports that he's being lined up for a move to AC Milan materialize, working with Nigel de Jong can have him challenging for next year's top spot. All he needs to do is pull a few more shirts and, with regards to the above picture, wear a few more shirts. 

15. Grant Holt

Club: Norwich City

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.4

League Appearances: 28(6)

Holt! Who goes there! 

It's no secret that Norwich City's stocky striker, Grant Holt, is an out-and-out nuisance for back lines everywhere.

And it looks like, with 2.4 fouls a game, just because you're a millionaire defender doesn't mean you're ineligible from receiving a hefty Grant.

14. Panagiotis Kone

Club: Bologna

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.5

League Appearances: 33(1)

Another Bologna player, this time the list's only Greek, Panagiotis Kone. 

But, to be fair to him, when you're hitting the net with overhead goalgasms like this against Napoli, you're allowed a few badly timed challenges. 

13. Juraj Kucka

Club: Genoa

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.5

League Appearances: 32(1)

It was once sung by Lennon (John, not Aaron or Neil):

"

"I am the walrus

Coo-Kucka-choo"

"

This was obviously in reference to his favorite consistently dirty player, Bologna's Slovakian midfielder, Juraj Kucka. And with 2.5 fouls a game, who can blame the late Beatle? 

12. Valon Behrami

Club: Napoli

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.5

League Appearances: 32(1)

When Swiss international Valon Behrami was robbed at gunpoint in December, the muggers obviously didn't know they were messing with a man who commits 2.5 fouls every game! 

With the exact same fouls per game average and league appearances as Juraj Kucka, Napoli’s Behrami only edges him out on alphabetical order.

If Kucka and Behrami are up for it, we’re willing to organise a playoff. Maybe send them out into a shopping mall and see how many two-footed tackles each player can commit on innocent bystanders over a 15-minute period?

Does anyone have any better ideas? 

11. Marouane Fellaini

Club: Everton

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.6

League Appearances: 31

Everton’s springy-haired Belgian star is actually the most consistently dirty player in the Premier League, despite not making the top 10 of Europe’s biggest leagues.

Marouane Fellaini's low placing in the list, despite being English footballer's best bad challenger, is probably down to Premier League fouls having actually dropped by 22 percent since 2006 (source: BBC) and compared to La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A and Bundesliga, the EPL is actually the least consistently dirty league.

We suspect the EPL’s decline and Ligue 1’s rise in 2012-13 has something to do with a certain Monsieur Barton going on loan to Marseille. 

10. Stefan Kiessling

Club: Bayer Leverkusen

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.6

League Appearances: 34

The Bundesliga's leading scorer in 2012-13 is also their top consistently dirty striker. 

If you thought 25 goals in 34 games by Leverkusen's Stefan Kiessling was impressive, you obviously haven't seen his 89 fouls in 34 games stats.

Now that's prolific. 

9. Tobias Weis

Club: TSG 1899 Hoffenheim

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.7

League Appearances: 17(1)

Tobias Weis, of a Bundesliga club named in honor of David Hasselhoff, Hoffenheim was so close to nearly managing three fouls every time he appeared in Bundesliga action, but he just fell short. Similar to how many of the players he attempts to tackle just fell over his trailing leg. 

8. Albin Ekdal

Club: Cagliari Calcio

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.7

League Appearances: 27(4)

Swedish midfielder, Albin Ekdal, is Cagliari's most consistent fouler, with an average of 2.7 offences in every one of the his 31 games in Serie A 2012-13.

We've found magazines under our friends' beds that are less dirty than that. 

7. Gabi

Club: Atletico Madrid

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.7

League Appearances: 34(1)

Atletico Madrid's Gabi is an opposition team's best friend.

Not only does he give you 2.7 free kicks or penalties every match, he even scores comedy own goals like this versus Barcelona last month. 

6. Helder Postiga

Club: Real Zaragoza

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.7

League Appearances: 36(1)

Zaragoza and Portugal's Helder Postiga is La Liga's most consistently dirty player. 

And The Postman (as no one calls him) always delivers when it comes to foul consistency. 2.7 every game for 37 matches. 

5. Timo Gebhart

Club: FC Nurnberg

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.8

League Appearances: 12(6)

Nurnberg's Timo "The Hitman" Gebhart is the Bundesliga's most consistant foulsmith. 

He may have only played 18 games in 2012-13, but with an average of 2.8 fouls each outing, he is the fifth most frequent fouler in Europe's top leagues. 

4. Sambou Yatabare

Club: Bastia 

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.8

League Appearances: 23(5)

Malia and Bastia's Sambou Yatabare is the highest placed African in the D25.

And, with 14 yellow cards in Ligue 1, you can't say Yatabare hasn't earned his place in the D25.

Yes, D25, now.

3. Perparim Hetemaj

Club: Chievo Verona

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 2.8

League Appearances: 28(2)

Finland's father of fouls, Perparim Hetemaj, might be No. 3 in this list, but he still isn't top of Terrible Tacklers Italia. 

Serie A has more (eight) consistently dirty players in this list than any other league, having just one more than the Bundesliga (seven). 

2. Adrian Mutu

Club: Ajaccio

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 3

League Appearances: 26(2)

We all remember Adrian Mutu, right?

Chelsea fans and West London entrepreneurs of questionable legality will certainly remember him. 

After failing drug tests in 2004 and 2010, his reputation isn't clean, but his challenges are even dirtier. He's Ligue 1's most consistent fouler and only misses out on the (dis)honor of Europe's dirtiest by four matches. 

We hope Chinese social services take heed of his three-fouls-a-game ratio, when considering him as a suitable father figure for the baby who was flushed down a toilet that Mutu wants to adopt, according to The Sun.

1. Gonzalo Bergessio

Club: Calcio Catania

Average Fouls Committed Per League Game: 3

League Appearances: 32

Whenever Gonzalo Bergessio takes to the pitch, you can rely on one thing.

Fouls are going to go down. 

Calcio's Argentinian striker's average of three fouls a match in his 32 Serie A appearances makes him the most consistently dirty player in all of Europe's top leagues for 2012-13.

Take a bow, Gonzalo, your parents must be so proud. 

Are you surprised that certain players aren't in this list? Who did you think was Europe’s most consistently dirty player? Tell us in the comments below.