Football's all-time bad-arse XI

Don’t you love it when Matt Simon comes on in the final minutes of a game? What a joy to see him darting about like a psychotic blond piranha.

It gets the primal juices flowing because, to put it bluntly, as a footballer Matt Simon is a bad-arse.

Fancy footballers get all the plaudits, but what is a hero without a villain? So I’ve decided to acknowledge the villains of football by selecting my all-time bad-arse XI.

The qualifications are simple. Each player has to have committed a spectacular piece of bad-arsery worthy of winning the Skull d’Or.

Harald Schumacher
Standing in goals for the bad-arse XI is German international Harald ‘Toni’ Schumacher. He was one of the great keepers. He had a knack for making himself big. He saved as many goals with his chest, legs and feet as he did with his hands.

Playing for Germany against France in a World Cup semi-final in 1982, Schumacher came out to narrow the angle when Frenchman Patrick Battiston ran on to a through ball.

Battiston got to the ball first, but Schumacher kept coming and at full pelt twisted and jumped, collecting the Frenchman in the head with his hip. Battiston was knocked senseless, a bunch of teeth strewn across the turf like little dead butterflies.

Was it deliberate? No foul was given, but debate about Schumacher’s guilt has raged ever since. There is no debate about his place in the bad-arse XI.

Kevin Muscat
When you see the jolly, affable bloke that is Kevin Muscat, you would never consider the word ‘hated’ could be used to describe him.

But in his playing days in England he was once touted as ‘the most hated man in football’. I’ll admit to taking a perverse kind of pride in that at the time. It was so good to see an Aussie making his mark in English football, never mind that the marks were the kind left by studs on a football boot.

Muscat’s bad-arse moment came in his A-League days playing for Melbourne Victory against Melbourne Heart in 2011.

Heart’s Adrian Zahra made a dash down the wing and Muscat came across to intercept. Muscat’s scything tackle just about split Zahra in half and earnt him a straight red.

Was it just mistimed? No way. I think it was timed perfectly – to cause maximum destruction. Just ask Zahra, who was extracting studs from his ribcage for months afterwards.

(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

Jeff Thomson
How on earth can an ex-Australian Test cricketer make football’s bad-arse XI? It’s easy if your name is Jeff Thomson.

Thommo is better known as the lethal fast bowler who terrified batsmen the world over. Perhaps less well known is that Thommo was a more than decent footballer and still has a great passion for the game. He was friends with Ray Richards and Rale Rasic. He has played golf with the likes of George Best and Roy Keane.

Thommo’s promising football career with Melita Eagles in Sydney was cut short when he punched a referee and was banned for life.

Eric Cantona
Frenchman Eric Cantona was an exceptional footballer who won four league titles with Manchester United. Known as ‘enigmatic’ and ‘controversial’, he always had a slightly temperamental streak.

His bad-arse moment came in 1995 while playing for Manchester United against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. On the receiving end of constant niggling fouls, Cantona kicked out at an opponent and was red-carded by the referee. But as he was leaving the field a Palace fan ran down the stairs and hurled abuse at him.

It was all too much for Cantona, who jumped over the fence with a flying karate kick before unleashing a flurry of punches.

Cantona received a lengthy ban from the game but later returned and went on to captain Manchester United. Among other things, Cantona has made a name for himself as an actor since retiring from football.

Luis Garisto
Luis Garisto almost didn’t make the cut since his act of savagery was nearly too extreme for the bad-arse XI. Playing for Uruguay in a friendly against Australia in Sydney in 1974, Garisto karate chopped Australia’s Ray Baartz in the throat. The Uruguayan was sent off for the incident.

The blow damaged an artery in Baartz’s neck and later while in hospital he slipped into a coma. For a few days things looked very grim. Luckily Baartz recovered, but the attack ended his promising football career at the age of just 27.

Lee Bowyer
Lee Bowyer’s bad-arse moment broke the sporting taboo that says all spats between teammates should be kept behind closed doors. Playing for Newcastle United against Aston Villa at St James’ Park in 2005 Bowyer had a heated discussion with teammate Keiron Dyer.

Down 3-0 at the time, Bowyer took offence when Dyer didn’t play a pass back to him. The red mist descended and Bowyer started swinging haymakers. Dyer responded in kind. Watching Aston Villa players pulling the two Newcastle men apart makes for uncomfortable viewing.

Bowyer was deemed to be the instigator, which explains why he is in the bad-arse XI and Dyer is only on the bench.

Andoni Goikoetxea
In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was no defensive combination more feared than that of Athletic Bilbao. The entire Bilbao back four was a bevy of brutish bad-arses, and the biggest bad-arse of them all was Andoni Goikoetxea.

Living up to his nickname ‘the Butcher of Bilbao’, he preferred the choicest cuts of meat, in particular the cruciate ligaments of opposing forwards. He prevented Germany’s Bernd Schuster from taking part in the 1982 World Cup with a ligament-snapping tackle in 1981.

But Goiketxea’s most famous bad-arse act came in a La Liga match against Barcelona at the Nou Camp in 1983. Playing for Barcelona that day was a precocious young Argentinian named Diego Maradona. When Goiketxea caught up with Maradona the inevitable happened: Maradona’s ankle was snapped like a tree branch.

The Butcher from Bilbao was handed a ten-match ban and a starting place in the bad-arse XI.

Roy Keane
Ireland and Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane also makes the cut. Keane was highly regarded as a footballer, yet he was definitely bad-arse. Some of his confrontations were legendary, a spat with Patrick Viera in the tunnel at Highbury being one.

However, it was Keane’s ongoing war with Manchester City’s Alf-Inge Haland that landed him in the bad-arse XI. In a derby game against City in 2001 Keane sought retribution for an incident from a few years before. Keane’s knee-high, studs-up challenge sent Haland into orbit and earnt him a straight red.

It looked premeditated. Later in his autobiography Keane offered the following insights: ‘I f***ing hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***.”

Vinnie Jones
Seeing highlights from Vinnie Jones’ career is like watching a David Attenborough documentary – the kind where a placid wildebeest suddenly gets pummelled and torn apart by a lion.

Time and again a player will take possession and look for a pass, then a blur of arms and legs flashes across the screen and, wham, said player writhes in agony, ref wields red card and Jones marches off.

There is a famous ugly challenge on bad-arse teammate Eric Cantona, but Jones’ ultimate bad-arse moment was of an entirely different nature.

Playing for Wimbledon against Newcastle United in 1998, Jones had the job of stopping talented youngster Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne. Jones took a novel approach to his task. Marking him tightly, Jones reached down and grabbed Gazza’s goolies and gave them an eye-watering squeeze. The iconic photo of the incident is a classic bad-arse football moment.

Like Cantona, Jones made the switch to acting at the end of his career. He had some success in Hollywood, where he was unsurprisingly cast as a bad-arse.

(AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

Martin Taylor
Martin Taylor is the quiet man of the bad-arse XI. From all reports he was a clean and unflappable player not known for football thuggery – with one almighty exception.

Playing for Birmingham City at home against Arsenal in 2008 Taylor had the job of marking skilful Croatian star Eduardo da Silva. As the ball was played towards Eduardo, Taylor made a series of calculations.

He had to take into account the pace of the ball, the speed of Eduardo and the direction he might take. Describing the incident some time later, Taylor said he thought he saw enough of the ball to attempt to play it.

Taylor’s lunge became a dreadful bone-crunching challenge. Literally bone-crunching. Eduardo’s leg was snapped in a couple of places and his ankle horribly dislocated.

Taylor was given a red and looked slightly bewildered as he trudged off, presumably trying to figure out where he got his calculations wrong.

Zinedine Zidane
And, lastly, the most controversial selection also happens to be one of the greatest players of all time: Zinedine Zidane.

Huh? ZiZi?

Sure, Zidane is a great ambassador for the game, but there is one incident of bad-arsery that will never go away.

It happened while Zidane was playing for France against Italy in the 2006 World Cup final. Late in the game Zidane was walking back from the Italian goal. He stopped, turned, then calmly launched a headbutt into the chest of Marco Materazzi.

Does it qualify Zidane for the bad-arse XI?

Referring to my definition as a ‘spectacular piece of bad-arsery’, the blow itself wasn’t all that damaging, with Materazzi being more at risk of pulling a muscle in his theatrical reaction.

However, because it happened in the World Cup final with billions of people watching, it is firmly in the ‘spectacular’ category – and of all the incidents here, it is the only one immortalised in a bronze statue, currently in a museum in Qatar.

You may have noticed that Matt Simon didn’t make the cut. Perhaps that makes him the kind of bad-arse player we need. A guy that bends and pulls at the rules rather than trampling all over them.

Simon could even be a role model for aspiring bad-arse players of the future. I can see it now: Simon’s School of Bootcraft and Bad-arse.

So that’s my all-time bad-arse XI. What’s yours?