Top 20 Craziest Football Fouls Ever
These crazy football fouls ended careers, ruined reputations, and created villains. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most insane, horrendous, and shocking fouls in footballing history.
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00:00-"When he was lying there, I knew that he was injured."
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most insane,
00:07horrendous, and shocking fouls in footballing history.
00:10We'll explore what happened on the fateful day,
00:13and the aftermath for the victim and perpetrator.
00:16-"The tone was set. The Battle of Nuremberg had begun."
00:22Number 20. Leonardo on Tab Ramos
00:25When appearing in international football's biggest tournament,
00:27you'd expect players to be on their best behavior. But no, not Brazil's Leonardo.
00:32-"And Leonardo has had a lot of activity so far today."
00:36On America's Independence Day, the host nation U.S. took on the South Americans at the 1994
00:41FIFA World Cup. But all the USA coincidences didn't aid midfielder Tab Ramos. Near the end
00:47of the first half, seemingly from nothing, Leonardo swung his arm and elbowed Ramos in the head.
00:53-"And in all of this, we forget that Tab's still down on the ground."
00:56The strike was so bad that the then-Real Betis player had a fractured skull that
01:00put him in the hospital for three and a half months. After being sent off,
01:03Leonardo was banned for four matches, ruling him out for the rest of the
01:07tournament that Brazil went on to win. Number 19. Jorge Santos on Andy Johnson
01:12In 2002, Sheffield United faced West Bromwich Albion in what's been called the Battle of
01:18Bramall Lane. -"Sheffield United's problems started in just the ninth minute. Keeper
01:22Simon Tracy sent off for handling outside the area."
01:26It was a brutal affair, filled with horrendous tackles, red cards, and injuries. Due to the
01:31Blades not having enough players, the match was abandoned, and the Baggies were awarded a 3-0 win.
01:36The most horrendous moment involved United's Santos and West Brom's Johnson. The year before,
01:42Johnson had elbowed the Cape Verde international, giving him a fractured eye socket.
01:46-"Santos had history with West Brom's Andy Johnson. The last time they faced each other,
01:51a collision between the two left Santos with a broken eye socket."
01:55On this day, Santos sought revenge. In the second half, he launched into a vicious two-footed lunge
02:01on Johnson, taking little regard for the ball. On top of being sent off, United's manager refused
02:06to play Santos again, and he departed the club later. Number 18. Carlos Tevez on Ezequiel Ham
02:13In 2015, the legendary Argentine forward Tevez returned to his first professional club,
02:19Boca Juniors. Not long after the hometown hero's return, he did something horrendous.
02:24With Boca facing Argentino Juniors, he absolutely messed up. As Tevez challenged Ham,
02:30his boot went over the ball, and his studs stuck the midfielder's ankle. Immediately,
02:35the damage was obvious. With an open fracture on the ankle, Ham was taken to the hospital,
02:40where Tevez later visited him and apologized. Amazingly, the striker wasn't even booked for
02:45causing the injury, which would have sent him off as he already received a yellow.
02:49It took Ham 610 days to make his return to the pitch.
02:53Number 17. Zinedine Zidane on Marco Materazzi
02:57Sometimes, the craziest fouls are not due to the violence. Sometimes,
03:01it's down to the absurd context. In the final of the 2006 World Cup,
03:05the legendary French captain and midfielder Zidane was set to retire from football after the game.
03:11It wasn't supposed to end this way. One of the game's greatest ever players,
03:16playing his last game as a professional in the biggest fixture on the planet.
03:21But instead of inspiring his nation to beat Italy, he destroyed their chances in extra time.
03:26After words were exchanged with Materazzi, Zidane headbutted the defender in the chest.
03:30What was Zidane thinking though? Zinedine Zidane's career
03:35ends with being sent off in the World Cup final.
03:38This act saw the icon get sent off as Italy went on to beat France on penalties. Despite this,
03:44Zidane was still awarded the Golden Ball, the tournament's best player. He was suspended for
03:48three games, but due to retirement, he agreed to do community service for FIFA instead.
03:54Number 16. Neil Simpson on Ian Durant
03:57This game in the Scottish Premier Division in 1988 between Rangers and Aberdeen
04:02really added gasoline to the emerging rivalry between these two clubs.
04:05With both teams meeting again in the Skol Cup final on the 23rd,
04:09this is also an important dress rehearsal.
04:11Only a few minutes into the game, the ball got loose near the Rangers' box.
04:15The up-and-coming Durant went to gain possession. However, Aberdeen's Simpson had other ideas.
04:21The midfielder went over the ball and stamped down on the outstretched leg of Durant.
04:25Shockingly, Simpson wasn't sent off.
04:39While the Rangers' midfielder had to be stretched off as he had sustained a double
04:42cruciate ligament tear, Durant didn't return to competitive football until 1991
04:48and was a very different player. In 1993, after taking Simpson and Aberdeen to court for £2
04:53million for the brutal injury, the case was settled.
04:57Number 15. Rashid Bouazan on Niels Koekmeyer
05:00In 2004, Koekmeyer was finding his feet at Go Ahead Eagles, having joined the Dutch side that
05:05season, while Bouazan was only in his second professional season with Sparta Rotterdam,
05:10having come through their youth system. When the two teams met in the Eerste Divisie,
05:14everything changed. Incredibly reckless, Bouazan lunged at Koekmeyer as he cleared the ball,
05:19missing it and striking his right leg with his studs up, breaking it instantly.
05:24Due to the severity of the injury, Koekmeyer had to retire. As well as the KNVB banning
05:29Bouazan for 10 games, Sparta suspended him for the rest of the season. In an unusual move,
05:34the Dutch government took Bouazan to court for battery, where he received a six-month suspended
05:39sentence. Number 14. Kevin Muscat on Adrian Zara
05:43After a career of horrendous tackles, starting fights, and poor discipline,
05:47in 2011, Muscat was in the twilight of his career at Melbourne Victory.
05:52Brilliantly worked from the Melbourne Victory. 1-0 off on 10 minutes.
05:57Then, his team faced local rivals Melbourne Heart, now known as Melbourne City. With the
06:02score locked at 2-all late in the second half, Zara ran down the wing towards the victory box.
06:06Muscat slid in, well over the ball, and clattered into Zara's legs,
06:11flipping him in the air and nearly landing horribly on his neck.
06:14Muscat, he's off again. A second straight red card for Kevin Muscat,
06:19and he didn't even see a second yellow. It's a straight red for the victory captain.
06:24The controversial captain was sent off and later got an eight-game ban. Zara's season was over,
06:29as he needed surgery to repair his knee ligaments. Afterward, Muscat announced
06:34his retirement at the end of the season, ending his 21-year career.
06:38Number 13. Mario David on Leonel Sanchez
06:42All the way back in 1962, one of the most violent football matches of all time happened.
06:47During the World Cup, host nation Chile faced Italy in a group match famously known as the
06:52Battle of Santiago, where nasty challenges and punches were flying everywhere.
06:56The 1962 World Cup in Chile played host to one of the dirtiest matches
07:01in football history, and not a single card was shown.
07:05In the first half, after being fouled by David, Chile's Sanchez connected with a left hook.
07:10Amazingly, the ref did nothing. Shortly after, David got his revenge,
07:14with one of the most over-the-top tackles ever. Just before Sanchez received a lofted pass,
07:19David ran behind him and booted him in the head. Absurd. David was unsurprisingly sent off.
07:25Sanchez stayed on the pitch and punched Italy's Umberto Maschio,
07:29breaking his nose, and still wasn't sent off.
07:32The match left an awful mark on the game.
07:34Number 12. Brian McClare and Dennis Irwin on David Boost
07:38Sometimes, horror injuries can be a complete accident. In 1996, Coventry City faced Manchester
07:44United in the Premier League. City defender Boost went up for a corner. Yet during the
07:49scramble in the box, he awkwardly collided with McLaren Irwin. Immediately, United's
07:54goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel put the ball out, as the damage was clear to see.
07:58"...and somebody's hurt. That may be David Boost."
08:02Boost had compound fractures in his tibia and fibula. It took nine minutes to stretcher him
08:07off and remove signs of the injury from the pitch. Boost, altogether, had 22 operations
08:12on the injury, and at one point, picked up the infection MRSA. He nearly had the leg amputated.
08:18Boost never played professionally again.
08:21"...this is one of the boxes of the good luck cards and get well cards and wishing me
08:26well after my injury."
08:29However amazingly, he did manage to play amateur football years after.
08:34Number 11. Martin Taylor on Eduardo de Silva
08:37In 2008, Eduardo was enjoying his first season with Arsenal when his club faced Birmingham City
08:42in the Premier League. Minutes into kickoff, the trajectory of his career negatively changed.
08:47Picking up the ball in City's half, Eduardo ran towards the box.
08:51Then, defender Taylor slid in with his studs up.
08:53"...as soon as the ref branded the red card, I knew then that the Arsenal players
09:01horrified expressions, our players horrified expressions right away that it was a serious
09:05injury."
09:05He missed the ball and put his momentum into Eduardo's standing leg.
09:09The horrific challenge caused a compound fracture of the Croatia
09:12International's fibula and dislocated his ankle. Taylor was shown a red card straight away.
09:17"...this, oh, he's sent off. Two minutes gone, and this is very nasty."
09:24The City defender stated he visited Eduardo in the hospital. However,
09:28the striker had no memory of that or the tackle.
09:31It took Eduardo a year to return to the pitch, but he was a very different player.
09:36Number 10. Paul Boesveld on Dennis Irwin.
09:38In 1997, Feyenoord hosted Manchester United in a group game for the Champions League.
09:43"...I was just going to say Cole, but I didn't get it."
09:47"...hat-trick for Cole. Brilliant."
09:50With United up 3-0 in the 80th minute from an Andy Cole hat-trick,
09:54Dutch midfielder Boesveld let his frustrations out in the worst way possible.
09:58As Irwin passed the ball, Boesveld put his studs into the side of the defender's knee.
10:03United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was livid on the sidelines, and rightly so.
10:08Not only wasn't Boesveld sent off,
10:10but he didn't even get a yellow card before being subbed shortly after the horror challenge.
10:14Irwin suffered from ruptured medial ligaments,
10:17which ruled him out of World Cup qualifiers for the Republic of Ireland.
10:21After seeing replays of the tackle, Boesveld apologized to Irwin, which the Irishman accepted.
10:27Number 9. Anthony Goygochea on Diego Maradona.
10:30When facing the best player in the world, one tactic is to intimidate them.
10:35Usually, this would be shirt-pulling or trash-talking.
10:38Well, Athletic Bilbao centre-back Goygochea took it to the extreme
10:41as his side faced a Maradona-led Barcelona side in 1983.
10:46With the Argentine getting the ball, Goycochea slid in from behind,
10:49striking Maradona's ankle and breaking it.
10:52This tackle, which was basically assault, was slammed by the Spanish media.
10:57Goycochea earned the nickname the Butcher of Bilbao, and he was suspended for 10 games.
11:02In 1984, the animosity between the sides erupted again in the Copa del Rey final,
11:07when Maradona fought with Bilbao and Goycochea before his teammates joined in,
11:11causing a mass brawl.
11:21Number 8. Ben Thatcher on Pedro Mendes.
11:28Welsh left-back Thatcher would have been more at home in the UFC than on a soccer pitch.
11:32After already getting in trouble for elbowing Nicky Summerby in 2000,
11:36you'd hope that he would have learned from his attack. But no.
11:40In 2006, while playing for Manchester City against Portsmouth, he repeated his previous attack.
11:45As Portsmouth's Mendes ran to get to the ball,
11:48Thatcher came charging in and elbowed the Portuguese player in the face.
11:51Knocking him out and sending him crashing into the advertisement boards.
12:01Mendes needed oxygen at the pitch side and suffered a seizure.
12:04He thankfully recovered. Thatcher was only initially booked for his brutality.
12:09But City banned him for 6 games along with a fine,
12:12while the FA later suspended Thatcher for 8 matches.
12:22Number 7. Axel Witsel on Marcin Wasilewski.
12:28Witsel has been seen as a creative midfielder throughout his career,
12:32not for horrifying challenges that left opponents in immense pain.
12:35But that was the case in 2009.
12:37On that fateful day, Witsel's standard liege took on Anderlecht.
12:41With the ball loose, the Belgium player tried to beat Wasilewski to the prize.
12:45Instead, with a massive lapse in judgment,
12:48Witsel put his weight on the Polish defender's outstretched leg,
12:51visually snapping it in an instant.
12:58With Anderlecht players and coaches erupting in anger,
13:01the ref unsurprisingly sent off Witsel.
13:03Afterward, the Belgium FA, the RBFA,
13:06suspended Witsel for 8 games after an appeal,
13:09while Wasilewski had surgery to repair his fractured tibia and fibula.
13:14Number 6. Ryan Shawcross on Aaron Ramsey.
13:17In 2010, Welsh international Ramsey was one of the hottest prospects in the sport for Arsenal.
13:26But his potential took a battering when his side faced Stoke City in the Premier League.
13:31With a 50-50 challenge, Shawcross and Ramsey both went for the ball.
13:34However, an error in judgment by the Stoke defender
13:37caused him to kick into the Welshman's legs.
13:40Immediately, it was obvious some severe damage had been done.
13:48Both sets of players looked distraught at what had happened.
13:51Shawcross was shown a straight red and left the pitch in tears.
13:55Ramsey had broken his tibia and fibula.
13:57Physically, it's as well as you can be when you have a broken leg.
14:02The first signs are good.
14:04Mentally, it's very down, of course.
14:06It's difficult to take. It was just coming into the team.
14:10It took until 2013, after a couple of lone moves to gain match fitness,
14:14for him to return fully to the Arsenal first team.
14:20If you've ever played the beautiful game,
14:22sometimes you might get a bit frustrated as a skillful player makes your team look
14:26really bad as they dribble their way through the pitch.
14:29But the worst thing to do is let that annoyance consume you.
14:33Well, in Group B's first fixture at the 1990 World Cup,
14:36Cameroon had a surprise 1-0 lead against defending champions Argentina.
14:44As the ball came to winger Kaniha in his half,
14:54he ran rings around several Cameroon players as he aimed for their goal.
14:58Losing his balance after a seemingly bad challenge,
15:01Kaniha was still going.
15:03That was until defender Massing booted the Argentine so hard that his boot came off,
15:08earning himself a red card.
15:15Number 4. Nigel de Jong on Xabi Alonso
15:18The World Cup tends to bring out the best and worst in players.
15:22And for the Netherlands de Jong, it was definitely the latter.
15:26Playing on a team dripping with talent,
15:28the Dutch faced an iconic Spain squad in the 2010 final.
15:38Only 28 minutes into the match, de Jong set the standard of the match,
15:42since there were 14 yellow cards and one red.
15:45As Alonso headed the ball,
15:47the then-Man City midfielder decided to do what can only be described as some kind of karate move.
15:59He struck Alonso in the chest with his studs, leaving Spain's midfield general in pain.
16:04Shockingly, the referee, Howard Webb,
16:07only gave de Jong a yellow card, a move he later regretted once he saw the replay.
16:13Number 3. Norbert Siegmann on Ivad Linen
16:27As far as the most graphic injuries in this video go, this one gets the gold prize.
16:32In 1981, in Germany's Bundesliga, Linen, playing for Armenia Bielefeld,
16:37descended towards Werder Bremen's box.
16:42But Siegmann had another idea, and lunged in recklessly.
16:50Now, we don't know how sharp 80 studs were, but apparently very.
16:55A large 10-inch wound had formed on Linen's thigh.
16:58Somehow, the midfielder got up and argued with people on the sidelines.
17:08With damage like that, Siegmann was sent off, right?
17:11Nope, he only got a yellow card for that horror.
17:13It took 23 stitches to repair the damage for Linen.
17:17Amazingly, he was back in training only 17 days after this tackle.
17:28Number 2. Harald Schumacher on Patrick Batiston
17:31The semi-final match between West Germany and France at the 1982 World Cup
17:35is seen as an action-packed classic bout.
17:38But this battle was very nearly tarnished by one idiotic incident.
17:48As Francis Batiston was bearing down on the German goal,
17:50he saw keeper Schumacher charging at him.
17:53And that was probably the last thing he remembered from that game.
17:56As Batiston's shot went wide, Schumacher violently collided with him.
18:09The defender was knocked unconscious, had two teeth knocked out,
18:12received three cracked ribs, and damaged his vertebrae.
18:16He received oxygen on the pitch and slipped into a coma.
18:19Batiston's teammates thought he had perished.
18:21Thankfully, he recovered.
18:23But even more shockingly, the ref didn't even give a foul, let alone send off Schumacher.
18:38Number 1. Roy Keane on Alfie Haaland
18:48In 1997, a clash between Keane and Haaland while he was playing for Leeds United
18:53resulted in a torn anterior cruciate ligament for the Irishman.
18:57Not knowing the severity of the injury, the Norwegian screamed at him.
19:01The Irishman aimed a trip at the Norwegian,
19:03before stumbling and falling to the ground in agony.
19:07Haaland, on seeing Keane writhing on the floor,
19:09got to his feet, ran over to Keane, before standing over and berating him.
19:14Well, Keane doesn't let things go.
19:16In 2001, Manchester United and Manchester City faced off.
19:20During the match, Keane purposely missed the ball
19:23and stamped into Haaland's right leg, which struck his injured left.
19:31While Keane was sent off, it was when he released his autobiography a year later
19:36that it got more dramatic.
19:37In it, he stated that he did the brutal tackle on purpose.
19:40I'd waited long enough. I hit him hard. The ball was there, I think.
19:45Take that, you c***. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries.
19:50For that, Keane received a call-up from Haaland.
19:53Haaland, on receiving the call-up from Haaland,
19:55was given a call-up from Haaland.
19:57For that, Keane received a further ban and a fine.
20:01Haaland never really recovered from his already-injured left knee,
20:04and retired in 2003.
20:06What's the greatest goal-line clearance by an outfielder in footballing history?
20:10Nicolas Soula against Kylian Mbappé?
20:12Andy Robertson against Jean-Philippe Mateta?
20:14Bakary Sanja against Gabriel Agbonlehor, or something else?
20:18Let us know below.
20:19What an amazing clearance by Zerla, off the line.
20:22Goodness gracious me.