Beautiful Game, Bad Sports: 20 Footballers Who Did Wrong by Their Teammates

In the footballing world, you have some seriously larger-than-life personalities, and with that comes big egos, serious clashes and sometimes, feuds and brawls that can seriously bring down performances for club and player.

Here are 20 footballers who made the Beautiful Game a little less beautiful by doing wrong by their teammates, whether it was by sleeping with their significant others, bad attitude and disharmony, blasting them in the press or straight-up breaking their jaws.

If you have other examples of what not to do to contribute to a positive team dynamic, as always, have at it in the comments. 

John Terry

The Chelsea star is a leader and an essential figure at his regular Premier League squad, so his inclusion on this list may seem a little odd.

But in 2010, Terry made his way into bad-teammate territory when he reportedly had an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the girlfriend of his former Chelsea and England teammate Wayne Bridge. Doesn't exactly do a whole lot for team unity.

The grudge manifested in front of thousands of fans when, in a February 2010 match between Bridge's Manchester City and Chelsea, Bridge refused to shake John Terry's hand before the match. 

John Harkes

Before John Terry, another John was involved in a similar situation. 

In the '90s, John Harkes was billed as the great hope for American soccer abroad, becoming the first U.S.-based footballer ever to play in the English Premier League. His impressive leadership for the Yanks even compelled U.S. Men's National Team coach Steve Sampson to declare him "Captain For Life." 

Until one day, he wasn't.

Sampson dropped Harkes from the squad outright months before the 1998 World Cup, a decision which at the time left fans scratching their heads (and still does).

The reason? Harkes revealed in an autobiography published more than a decade later that Sampson had left him off the squad because Harkes had an affair with the wife of his teammate, Eric Wynalda, and Sampson sought to keep the incident from destroying team morale. 

As Sampson told the Associated Press:

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"I felt that these are the kinds of issues that need to stay in the locker room and within the team and not exposed to the public. The private issues for me were the most serious issues. I think I could have lived with everything else and kept John on the team if it had not been for the private issues. It's one thing to have an affair outside the team. It's another to have one inside. There are just certain lines that one cannot cross.'' 

 

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Carlos Tévez

He's got talent, to be sure, but his poor attitude has been a detriment to Manchester City and a thorn in the side of manager Roberto Mancini.

Tensions with the sulking striker came to a head when he refused to leave the bench as a substitute in a Champions League match against Bayern Munich. 

When City officials asked him to come in for a meeting at the Etihad, he went AWOL and flew home to Argentina instead without telling his employers.

Granted, being on the bench can be frustrating, but with plenty of players putting in tremendous effort at Manchester City this season and helping the club emerge as the team to beat in the Premiership right now, Tévez's lack of support and tantrum-throwing really just seems kind of embarrassing. 

William Gallas

Another player blessed with talent but cursed with a big ego and a terrible attitude, itinerant French defender William Gallas has seen his fair share of accusations of poor sportsmanship.

While at Chelsea, he allegedly threatened to score own goals unless he was chosen for the starting squad, an accusation he has denied. 

Later on, Gallas would come under fire for talking smack about his teammates on the French national team and Arsenal, blasting the Gunners in the press while he was captain, saying he thought they lacked the courage to be real title contenders.

In his memoir, The Word for the Defense, Gallas called out a young French player, believed to be Samir Nasri, for acting disrespectful towards his elder teammates.

Craig Bellamy

The Welsh hard man has calmed down in recent years, but an aggressive and sometimes violent streak has gotten him in serious trouble in the past.

His most famous altercation with a teammate came in 2007, during his first stint at Liverpool, and involved karaoke, red wine and a golf club—never a good combination. 

As Bellamy put it, he "lost control" in an incident which escalated during a karaoke night out with the team in Portugal.

Bellamy was trying to get teammate John-Arne Riise to sing (he had just sang "Red Red Wine" according to his account), and Riise refused and grew rather irritated with Bellamy's persuading. One thing led to another, and it led to Bellamy allegedly threatening Riise with a golf club.

Liverpool fined him £80,000, and everyone would go on to have a good laugh about it when Bellamy parodied the incident in a now-iconic goal celebration.

Joey Barton

The Premiership's most notorious bad boy has gotten into fights with all sorts of people, including, while he was at Manchester City, a couple of his teammates.

During a 2004 Manchester City holiday party, Barton stubbed out a cigar in the eye of 18-year-old City reserve team player Jamie Tandy, for which he was set to be fined £140,000. Barton maintains the stubbing was an accident and Tandy provoked it by trying to set his shirt on fire.

Three years later, Barton came under fire for another serious altercation on the pitch, a brawl that sent his teammate Ousmane Dabo to the hospital. The fight was also the beginning of the end of Barton's time at Manchester City. 

Emmanuel Adebayor

He's fitting in reasonably well while on loan at Tottenham Hotspur, but relationships between the Togolese striker and his clubs haven't always been so rosy.

While at Arsenal, his temper got him into trouble, most notably in a 2008 Carling Cup semifinal where he brawled with teammate Nicklas Bendtner, leaving the Danish striker with a cut nose. Neither were punished by the FA.

At Manchester City, Adebayor most notably has clashed with manager Roberto Mancini, but his bad-teammate status has been best exemplified by his lack of commitment to certain club obligations.

The striker was left off the squad for their tour of America after he refused to train with the youth and reserve squads, and later remarked that he was "let down" and "disrespected" by the decision. Cry me a river.

Luis Suárez

While at Ajax, Suárez earned the flattering nickname of the "Cannibal of Ajax" for biting the shoulder of a PSV Eindhoven player.

The technically gifted but sometimes hotheaded striker also got in trouble while with the Amsterdammers with his own teammates, most notably getting suspended after fighting at halftime with Albert Luque. 

Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham

This probably seems like a strange inclusion, but as teammates in the getting-along sense, well, neither party comes out looking particularly stellar in what has to be one of the dumbest footballer feuds of all time. 

Both Manchester United strikers put in a string of stellar performances throughout the 1990s, with Sheringham becoming one of the heroes of the Red Devils' victory in the 1999 Champions League final.

But his feud with Andy Cole is also the stuff of footballing infamy. 

The catalyst of the Cole-Sheringham feud is often cited as a 1998 match against Bolton Wanderers, when Sheringham blamed Cole for a Bolton goal and the two stopped talking.

The reason Cole hated Sheringham so much? As he revealed in a 2010 interview, it had everything to do with a handshake (or lack thereof) back in 1995:

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"I walked on to the pitch, 60,000 or so watching. Sheringham is coming off. I expect a brief handshake, a "Good luck, Coley," something. I am ready to shake. He snubs me. He actively snubs me, for no reason I was ever aware of then or since. He walks off. 

I don't even know the bloke so he can't have any issue with me. We're fellow England players, it is my debut and he snubs me.

I was embarrassed. I was confused. And there you have it. From that moment on, I knew Sheringham was not for me."

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Kevin Muscat

One of the meanest mamma-jammas to ever play the game, Australian international Kevin Muscat is the kind of guy you'd want on your side in a bar fight, but due to his history of violent behavior on and off the pitch, you probably wouldn't want him on your team.

Or anywhere near you if competition is involved. 

The "most hated man in football" earned his moniker after, while facing off against Socceroos teammate Stan Lazaridis in a Premiership match, he recklessly tackled the Birmingham City player.

While at Millwall, Muscat instigated a tunnel brawl after he and Sheffield United keeper Paddy Kenny were both sent off. Muscat was suspended for five matches. 

Hope Solo

Now, she's one of the stars of the U.S. Women's National Team and was instrumental in helping them reach the finals of the FIFA Women's World Cup over the summer, but Solo's reputation was not always as a team player. 

A July 2011 TIME Magazine report details how Solo was once "a pariah" of the national team after she publicly criticized the team and was sent home early from the 2007 Women's World Cup.

That tournament, Solo had earned three consecutive clean sheets, but U.S. coach Greg Ryan opted to play the more experienced Briana Scurry in her place in the semifinal.

Scurry conceded four goals, leading to the USWNT's elimination from the competition. Solo was naturally upset, and who can blame her? But still, Solo's words about her teammate didn't exactly help the team dynamic at a low point in the tournament. 

Rafa Marquez

Like Hope Solo and to a much greater extreme, New York Red Bulls defender Rafa Marquez broke the cardinal rule of promoting team harmony; Don't blast your teammates in the press.

Following the Red Bulls' tough 3-1 loss to Real Salt Lake back in September, Marquez put his fellow back for members on blast:

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“If we look at statistics, I stole a lot of balls. I think I made two or three bad passes out of 30 plus attempts. I almost didn’t commit any errors, so I am not worried. I think I am playing at my maximum level, and doing everything I can. I don’t have, unfortunately, four defenders on my level that can help me out.”

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He saved the most vitriol for young defender Tim Ream, who he accused of making "infantile" mistakes, and saying only Thierry Henry matched him on the squad in terms of ability. 

John Hartson

The Welsh hard man won fans with his high-volume scoring at West Ham United, and while at Celtic, earned an SPFA Player of the Year Award.

But his most notorious moment, which occurred while at West Ham in 1998, occurred not during a match, but at training. Hartson and teammate Eyal Berkovic got into an argument about Hartson's performance during the Hammers' 2-0 loss to Northampton, and, in a rage, Hartson knocked Berkovic to the ground and kicked him in the head, breaking his jaw. 

Hartson did later show remorse for the incident:

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“Suddenly I have no control over my legs. I am absolutely blazing with fury. My left boot shoots out and cracks Eyal under the jaw. I kick him hard, like I’m trying to score a goal with his head.

I wish I could turn the clock back and erase the memory. I will always deeply regret it.”

 

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Graeme Le Saux

The former Premiership left-back framed himself as the thinking man's footballer. He went to uni. He read The Guardian. But he could still scrap when he wanted to.

In a 1995 Champions League match while Le Saux was at Blackburn Rovers, frustrations with the club's European campaign came to a head during a match at Spartak Moscow's ground, and when teammate David Batty began yelling at Le Saux, Le Saux struck back with his arm.

Neither were sent off, but Le Saux punched Batty in the face so hard he broke his hand.

Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer

Bad Boy Bowyer holds the record for the most-ever yellow cards earned by a Premier League footballer and has been typically framed as the instigator in accounts of the incident, but in this case, he and his former Newcastle United teammate Kieron Dyer both come off looking rather, well, not-so-nice. 

In an April 2005 match, the two teammates were involved in a major brawl on the pitch and had to get pulled apart, resulting in a ripped kit for Bowyer and them both getting sent off and receiving serious bans.

Graeme Souness had the two publicly apologize, and much to their likely chagrin, they would later be reunited at West Ham United.

Bruce Grobbelaar

The Merseyside derby is always a time of heated emotions on the pitch, sometimes so much so that it, well, grabs you by the throat.

When a Steve McManaman clearance failed to gain momentum and the resulting fall gave Everton a goal, Reds keeper Bruce Grobbelaar gave the young Macca a verbal lashing. Things got heated, escalating to the point where Grobby grabbed McManaman by the neck and the two began scrapping.

Being upset about a mistake is one thing, but there's no need to resort to literally going for the jugular. 

Roberto Rojas

This is just straight-up bananas. As, erm, well-intentioned as Rojas' move was, in doing what he did, he shafted his teammates by denying them an opportunity to participate in a World Cup and got himself banned for life from international football. 

What did he do?

In a 1989 World Cup qualifying match, Rojas' Chile was down 1-0 to a formidable Brazil at the Maracanã, a match they had to win if they wanted to retain any possibility of participating in the World Cup.

So Rojas decided to take matters into his own hands, diving into the smoke of a firework a Brazilian fan had thrown and deliberately cutting his head with a razor he had hidden in his glove to create the illusion pitch conditions had caused an injury.

The Chilean team bought it and asked for the match to be called off due to risky conditions. The officials bought it, but learned the truth soon after and Rojas' sleight-of-hand would go down in history as one of the game's worst acts of deception. 

Craig Levein

Don't let the mullet fool you—former Hearts of Midlothian defender Craig Levein was as tough as they come, winning back-to-back SPFA Young Player of the Year awards.

But with his fame came infamy: in an August 1994 friendly, Levein got involved in one of the SPL's most memorable scuffles.

After an allowed goal from Raith Rovers' Gordon Dalziel, Levein and his fellow centre-back Graeme Hogg began to argue over whose fault it was.

Hearts supporters dispute to this day over who provoked who, but it ended with Levein's fist meeting Hogg's nose, causing it to break and Hogg to bleed profusely. Both players were sent off and Levein was suspended for a whopping 12 matches.