🟥 Villains & Red Cards
The headbutts, the bites, the stamps and the spits. Zidane's farewell, Suárez's teeth, Rijkaard's phlegm, the Battle of Santiago, the World Cup at its most savage.
Part of World Cup
12 moments in this segment.
- - The Battle of Santiago. Chile vs Italy 1962 is so violent, punches, a broken nose, police on the pitch, that commentator David Coleman called it "the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game."
- - Antonio RattÃn refuses to leave the pitch. Argentina captain Antonio RattÃn is sent off against England in 1966 and refuses to go for several minutes, sparking a diplomatic row; England manager Alf Ramsey later called the Argentines "animals".
- - Schumacher flattens Battiston. In the 1982 semi-final, German keeper Harald Schumacher charges out and smashes into Patrick Battiston, leaving the Frenchman unconscious with broken teeth, and is not even penalised. One of the most shocking fouls in World Cup history.
- - Rijkaard spits at Völler. In a fiery 1990 second-round tie, the Netherlands' Frank Rijkaard spits in the curly hair of West Germany's Rudi Völler, twice, and both are sent off in one of the World Cup's ugliest feuds.
- - Maradona's wild-eyed scream into the camera. Maradona sprinted to the touchline and screamed into a TV camera after scoring against Greece in 1994, an image that turned sinister days later when he failed a drug test and was expelled from the tournament.
- - Beckham's kick and red card vs Argentina. David Beckham flicks a leg at Diego Simeone and is sent off in the 1998 second round; ten-man England lose on penalties and Beckham becomes a national hate figure overnight, before his long redemption.
- - Simeone's role in the Beckham red card. Diego Simeone went down theatrically after Beckham's flick in 1998, then admitted years later he'd encouraged the referee to act, gamesmanship that helped knock England out and entered World Cup folklore.
- - The words behind the headbutt. For years the world wondered what Marco Materazzi said to provoke Zidane in the 2006 final; the exchange became one of football's great unsolved mysteries, eventually addressed by both men.
- - Nigel de Jong's kung-fu kick in the final. In the 2010 final, Nigel de Jong plants his studs into Xabi Alonso's chest, a karate-style challenge that somehow drew only a yellow card, the symbol of a brutal Dutch approach in a notoriously dirty final.
- - Luis Suárez bites Chiellini. Luis Suárez sinks his teeth into Giorgio Chiellini's shoulder during a 2014 group match, his third on-pitch bite, and is banned for four months by FIFA. Uruguay's talisman becomes the tournament's pantomime villain.
- - Pepe's headbutt and red card vs Germany. Portugal's Pepe reacted to a Thomas Müller fall in 2014 by leaning in and headbutting him, earning a red card in a 4–0 thrashing, a moment of self-destruction in a chastening defeat.
- - Messi and James square up in the qualifiers. Lionel Messi and James RodrÃguez confronted each other after Enzo Fernández was sent off in Argentina's 1-1 draw with Colombia during CONMEBOL qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. Tempers from the long road to the finals.
