5 of the worst fouls in football history

With every weekend of football, there seems to be a new debate over exactly what constitutes a foul – particularly in the penalty area, naturally.

While some fans and observers feel strongly that attacking players deserve more protection from hard-hitting defenders, plenty of others will argue that football is a “contact sport” and that things were better in the 1970’s and 1980’s when the tackle from behind was still allowed and players could be sent flying.

Sometimes though, a tackle is so bad that everyone watching can agree that it’s clearly a foul. Serious injuries have been caused by bad tackles and some have been terrible enough to land the offender with long periods banned on the sidelines.

While plenty of bad injuries were just plain unlucky, the kind of fouls we’re looking at today are the sort of horror-show stuff that belong more in the UFC than in football. Here are five of the worst fouls ever committed.

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#5 Kevin Muscat on Adrian Zahra

By the time Australian international defender Kevin Muscat made his way back to the land Down Under to play for Melbourne Victory in 2005, he’d already garnered a reputation as one of the dirtiest players in football.

Sent off on multiple occasions during his time in the UK with Wolves, Rangers and Millwall, Muscat had stamped on players, threatened younger players and had seriously injured opponents too. Supposedly, his crazy temperament was the reason he’d never been selected for an Old Firm derby during his time at Ibrox.

It was in another derby – the Melbourne derby between Muscat’s Victory and their rivals Melbourne Heart (now Melbourne City) – that Muscat committed probably his worst ever foul, though. It was January 2011 and Muscat - Victory’s captain - was only just returning from a ban following a red card for an elbow.

Heart attacker Adrian Zahra made a run down the right side of the pitch and got past his marker, but before he could cross the ball into the box, he was felled by a truly shocking tackle by Muscat, who lunged way over the ball and crashed directly into Zahra’s right leg, sending him somersaulting and landing head-first.

Unsurprisingly a straight red card was shown to Muscat, who was then banned for a further 8 games following a review of the tackle, which was more of an assault than anything else.

Zahra’s season was ended due to the knee injury he received from the tackle, although thankfully he went on to a full recovery and returned to play in the next season. The foul remains one of the most shocking in football history and is still a popular Youtube clip for fans searching for the “worst fouls ever”.

#4 Roy Keane on Alf Inge Haaland

Talk about bad blood – the seeds for Roy Keane’s horrific foul on Alf-Inge Haaland were inexplicably sewn three seasons prior to the actual incident occurring.

Keane had held a grudge against the Norwegian defender following an incident that saw Manchester United’s then-captain damage his knee ligaments in an attempted tackle on Haaland in a game in 1997/98 between United and Leeds.

Haaland – believing Keane was feigning injury – stood over him and shouted down at him to get to his feet. Unfortunately for Haaland, Keane would neither forgive nor forget.

In April 2001’s Manchester derby, Keane saw his chance for revenge. A 50/50 ball bounced between the Irishman and Haaland, now representing Man City, and so rather than go for the ball, Keane decided to take action, lunging at Haaland’s right knee with his right foot and smashing all of his weight into it.

To make matters worse, he then stood over the fallen Haaland and shouted down at him, repaying the favour from three years prior.

Naturally, Keane was sent off, and after the game, he received a lengthy five-game ban as well as a £150,000 fine. Haaland claimed the injury suffered during the tackle effectively ended his career, and although he did play a handful of times afterwards he never truly regained full fitness.

To make matters worse, in his 2002 autobiography, Keane admitted outright that the tackle had been premeditated and he’d planned to hurt the Norwegian. It was another black mark on Keane’s glittering career – one that was marred with a history of violence throughout.

#3 Nigel de Jong on Xabi Alonso

By far the worst foul ever committed in a World Cup final, the most shocking thing about Nigel de Jong’s karate-style assault on Spain’s Xabi Alonso remains that the Dutch enforcer somehow didn’t get a red card for it.

Referee Howard Webb instead booked the player, determined not to let the final game of 2010’s World Cup go out with a whimper as Holland’s players simply lost the plot and descended into thuggery.

In the end, the match broke the record for the most yellow cards ever awarded in a World Cup final with fourteen – nine to Holland and five to Spain – more than doubling the previous record total of six. Holland’s Johnny Heitinga ended up being sent off in extra time for a second yellow but how de Jong survived is anyone’s guess.

Half an hour of the game hadn’t even passed when Alonso leapt to head an aerial ball and was met with a jumping front kick directly to the chest from de Jong, who clearly had zero intention of winning the ball, as his eyes were on Alonso throughout.

In referee Webb’s defence, had he dismissed de Jong so early, the game may have become so one-sided in favour of Spain that it could’ve become farcical. And the game had already been established as a hard-hitting one as two players from both sides had been booked already.

But by not sending de Jong off, Webb ensured that he would go down in history as the ref who only gave a yellow card for a tackle that would’ve been more at home in the UFC’s octagon than on a football pitch.

#2 Axel Witsel on Marcin Wasilewski

Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel doesn’t exactly have a reputation as a dirty player, which makes sense as he’s more of an attacker than a defensive midfielder or hard-hitting enforcer.

In 2009 though, he was responsible for one of the worst fouls in football history and certainly one of the worst injuries seen on the pitch in the modern era. Representing Standard Liege in a heated game against rivals Anderlecht, the foul came against Polish international defender Marcin Wasilewski.

The ball was running loose on the left-hand side of the pitch close to the touchline, and Wasilewski lunged at it in an attempt to keep it in play. As his right leg hooked around towards the ball, Witsel came sprinting at full pace from the opposite angle and leapt over the top, crashing down onto the lower leg with the full weight of his right boot.

Wasilewski’s leg was left snapped cleanly in two, the lower part hanging off the upper in a truly sickening visual.

Unsurprisingly, Witsel received a straight red card, and was then banned for ten games – a ban which was surprisingly reduced to eight games, probably due to Witsel showing remorse for the tackle after the incident.

It was such a bad challenge that Witsel received death threats from fans of both Anderlecht and Poland, although thankfully for all parties, Wasilewski returned to action less than a year after the incident and went on to play for a further nine seasons.

#1 Ben Thatcher on Pedro Mendes

If you thought Nigel de Jong’s x-rated tackle was the worst to ever receive a yellow card rather than a red one, think again. Sure, de Jong’s flying kick was bad, but it’s got nothing on Ben Thatcher’s shocking assault on Pedro Mendes from a 2006 game between Manchester City and Portsmouth.

Thatcher already had history when it came to the use of his elbows – representing Wimbledon in 2000, he’d knocked out Sunderland midfielder Nicky Summerbee with a violent blow and although the referee missed the incident, he was banned for two games following an investigation.

Worse was to come. Now representing Man City, Thatcher used his elbow brutally again – chasing a loose ball, rather than attempt to control it, he instead slammed his elbow into the side of the head of Portsmouth’s Mendes, sending him sliding unconscious into the advertising hoarding at the side of the pitch.

Mendes was so badly hurt that he suffered a seizure on the pitch, required oxygen, and spent the night in the hospital. And somehow referee Dermot Gallagher didn’t send Thatcher off, instead only awarding a yellow card – prompting Portsmouth’s Matt Taylor to suggest you’d have to commit murder to get a red card from Gallagher.

Thatcher didn’t escape punishment, however. The foul was so brutal that he was banned by his own club for six games and was also fined six weeks’ wages. The FA took it further too, banning Thatcher for eight games, with a further fifteen game suspended ban for two years.

It was one of the hardest sanctions ever delivered to a player but in this instance, it was fully deserved, as the foul remains one of the most shocking in Premier League history over a decade later.