The 10 most polarising players in world football

#2 Sergio Ramos

Ramos receives a record 25th red card for Real Madrid

Red cards are an occupational hazard of playing in the most confrontational role on a football team. Even the most elegant centre halves, the likes of Vincent Kompany and Paulo Maldini, picked them up occasionally in their career. For Sergio Ramos to have accumulated 25 though suggests his game may be characterized by aggression that crosses the line into nastiness.

Certainly he is villified by every Spanish fan who doesn't support Real, he is persona non grata in Liverpool, and would probably struggle to even get a visa in Egypt, such is the level of vitriol directed towards him for injuring Mohammed Salah in last season's Champions League final. Ramos doesn't seem particularly fazed by this though, and at times seems to relish his role as football's (almost) ultimate bad guy.

#1 Mauro Icardi

Icardi was benched in the Europa League for Inter; pictured with his controversial wife Wanda

Whilst the likes of Ramos, Costa and Suarez are vilified by the majority of those who follow football, they can at least take solace in the adulation they receive from their own fans. Ramos is undisputably a Real Madrid legend; Costa and Suarez are adored by the fanbases they have showcased their undoubted ability to.

Mauro Icardi is a world class player who is hated even by his own fans. Icardi first began to court controversy when the wife of his Sampdoria teammate, Maxi Lopez, divorced him and married Icardi months later, who subsequently took custody of Lopez's children. He then moved to Inter, where he quickly became imbroiled in a feud with their ultras, the most hardcore fans, writing in a 2016 autobiography that he would bring '100 criminals from Argentina to kill them'.

One of the best strikers in the world, he has struggled to get in the Argentina squad, many speculate due to the controversy he courts, and has recently been stripped of the Inter captaincy. Icardi is surely the only world class footballer in the world who is hated even by those he represents.