Part of the fun of football is the personalities that come alongside it. In that sense, people often think about dazzling entertainers like Diego Maradona, Paul Gascoigne, and Eric Cantona. Sometimes, however, footballers can express themselves in a more frightening sort of manner.
There have been many wild players who would do anything to win over the years, all seemingly desperate to employ the dark arts at every opportunity. From crunching challenges (with more intent to cause harm than to win the ball) to violent outbursts that result in absolute mayhem, a select few over the years have really left their mark on the football pitch – often with studs raked down the calves of their opponents.
With all that in mind, the 10 scariest players in football history have been named and ranked below.
Ranking factors
How poor was their discipline in terms of red/yellow cards
How infamously intimidating were they to play against
How likely were they to start a fight out of nothing
Did they have any bizarre moments which highlighted just how scary they were
11 Diego Costa
Chelsea's Diego Costa gestures towards Tottenham's Erik Lamela as referee Mark Clattenburg looks on
Chelsea's Diego Costa gestures towards Tottenham's Erik Lamela as referee Mark Clattenburg looks on
The two managers who spent the longest working with Diego Costa across his entire career were Diego Simeone and Jose Mourinho. That tells you all you need to know about the striker's mentality.
At the time of writing, Costa has scored 199 goals at club level, but he's not so far behind on bookings, with 161 yellow cards. Add 13 red cards into the mix, and it's clear why the likes of Simeone and Mourinho trusted the combative Spaniard so regularly. His fiery attitude was summed up in October 2025, when he reignited a 10-year feud with Martin Skrtel, starting a fight with the defender in a charity match between Chelsea and Liverpool legends.
10 Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a level of confidence throughout his career which often bordered on arrogance. To be fair, he regularly backed up all his talk with plenty of spectacular moments, but this didn't make him the most popular figure on the pitch at all times.
Standing at 6'5 and weighing in at around 95 kilos, the Sweden legend holds a black belt in Taekwondo and he wasn't ever shy when it came to sparking confrontation. He clashed with the likes of Pep Guardiola, Romelu Lukaku, Rafael Van der Vaart, and even hospitalised Marco Materazzi. With an ego the size of his, and the physical capabilities to beat most men in a fight, the idea of upsetting Ibrahimovic truly is a frightening notion.
9 Luis Suarez
luis suarez-1
There can be no doubting Luis Suarez's incredible talent as a footballer. Shining notably at Ajax, and then tearing up the Premier League at Liverpool, before going on to be the perfect partner for Lionel Messi at Barcelona, the Uruguayan was special. But there's a very good reason he makes this list.
At times, Suarez's mentality was more akin to a zombie than a footballer. Famously, across his career, he has been banned on three seperate occasions, missing a combined 26 games, for biting opponents while playing for Ajax, Liverpool and Uruguay. It's hard to know what was going on in his head during this moment, but his behaviour really was like something out of a horror film.
8 Sergio Ramos
Sergio Ramos
Like many of the names on this list, Sergio Ramos will be remembered as a brilliant footballer who won many major honours. Indeed, the Spaniard has lifted the Champions League, World Cup, Euros, La Liga and other big trophies across his career. Clearly, he had a winner's mentality.
This often meant doing absolutely anything he could to win. As such, Ramos never shied away from the opportunity to lean into the dark arts to help his team get across the line. His discipline wasn't always the best, though, as he managed to pick up a lot of yellow and red cards. In fact, with 30 career dismissals, only one player in football history has more red cards than the hot-headed centre-back.
7 Steve McMahon
Steve McMahon is a less familiar name on this list, but those who followed English football in the 1980s will certainly understand why he is considered to have been a rather scary player. His best years were spent with Liverpool, winning three league titles and two FA Cups, and making a few enemies along the way.
Ian Wright once described his former England teammate as an outright 'bully', while Vinnie Jones felt McMahon was his 'only real rival' as the 'hardest man in football'. After Jones smashed McMahon with a 'neck-high tackle' in the 1988 FA Cup final, the Liverpool star would later get revenge with a horror foul that left the Wimbledon man needing stitches.
6 Roy Keane
Roy Keane
No list of football scary men would be complete without Roy Keane. Even as a pundit, it can be intimidating to watch the Irishman tear into players who have managed to displease him. But as a footballer, the Manchester United legend was one of the most terrifying men in the modern era.
He picked up seven red cards in the English top-flight; only three men had more sendings offs in Premier League history. He infamously put in an absolutely horrible challenge on Erling Haaland’s father, Alf-Inge, and he also stamped on former England boss Gareth Southgate. He was also fearless in front of his managers, falling out with Man Utd boss Sir Alex Ferguson, as well as Ireland manager Mick McCarthy in the lead up to the 2002 World Cup.
5 Vinnie Jones
Vinnie Jones - Leeds United
Season 89/90 Vinnie Jones - Leeds United Mandatory Credit:Action Images
Both Alan Shearer and Micah Richards included Vinnie Jones on their lists of hardest-ever Premier League players, and they did so with good reason. Like Keane, he also picked up seven red cards in the competition, but that's all the more impressive as he only played 200 games (with the first half of his career coming before the league format was changed in 1992).
Known as the spearhead of Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’, whose crowning moment was that FA Cup win against Liverpool in which Jones crunched the aforementioned McMahon, the Welshman was a fearless character. His ill-discipline once led him to pick up three red cards during the 1995-96 campaign. After retirement, he became an actor. While this may have been a bit of a shock, there were no surprises as to what sorts of roles he got, as he has regularly starred as criminals and villains with an appetite for violence.
4 Pepe
Pepe celebrates last-ditch tackle for Portugal
Pepe celebrates last-ditch tackle for Portugal
It's quite frightening to think there was a period where a Mourinho-coached Real Madrid team had Ramos and Pepe as the two starting centre-backs. The Portuguese defender may not have picked up as many career red cards as his teammate, but he was probably the scarier of the two.
With a whopping yellow cards for club and country across his career 211, Pepe even considered his futute within football after massively losing his head way back in 2009. He was shown a red card and had to be escorted off the pitch by Iker Casillas after twice aiming kicks at the head of Javi Casquero, while also hitting Juan Albin in the face. Pepe said:
"I didn't recognise myself at that moment. I lost control for a few minutes. I wanted to win the game so we could continue fighting for the league.
"I've seen the incident repeated and I insist I don't recognise myself."
3 Felipe Melo
Manchester City's Kyle Walker clashes with Fluminense's Felipe Melo
Manchester City's Kyle Walker clashes with Fluminense's Felipe Melo
With 26 career red cards, Felipe Melo is another one of football's more intense characters. The hot-headed Brazilian loved to instigate scraps and even once knocked an opposition’s press officer to the ground during his time with Fluminense back in 2024.
Many will best remember him for a nasty stamp on Arjen Robben in the 2010 World Cup quarter-final. Truly one of the game's dirtiest players, Melo suitably, spent the last five league games of his career on the sidelines due to a suspension, having been sent off during a game vs Geremio when he was a substitute.
2 Duncan Ferguson
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For many, Duncan Ferguson stands alone as the hardest Premier League player of all time. So he just had to rank highly on this list of terrifying footballers. A frightening figure, he once received a three-month prison sentence for an assault on Raith Rovers’ John McStay during his time at Rangers.
Ferguson was just as scary off the pitch, too, once attacking two burglars who tried to break into his house, leaving one of them recovering for three days in the hospital. He actually thought he'd killed the man, saying:
“I unloaded, I really did. I really followed in to the point where I thought I'd killed him, I really did. I had to try and resuscitate him then."