Annoying Habits Footballers Have: Footballers are cool and entertaining, but they can get really annoying, too. And today, we want to take a look at 10 footballers and their annoying habits that will absolutely blow your mind.
1. Kylian Mbappe
Apparently, Mbappe is always switching his voice during interviews and it is something that irks his teammates, Adrien Rabiot in particular. And to be fair, if anyone would know how Mbappe really sounds, it’d be Rabiot, because he has shared a dressing room with him at both club and international level. Here’s exactly what Rabiot said about Mbappe’s little habit:
“Kylian annoys me when he changes his voice in interviews. When we are together, he speaks normally, but when you watch the interview, I don’t know why, his voice changes. It’s annoying and stressful.”
2. Thibaut Courtois
Courtois is no doubt one of the best goalkeepers in the world, but if you ever see how he gets ready for a football game, you might be a little irked. Here are some things he always does without fail:
First, he makes sure that he steps into the corridors of the stadium at a specific time, then when he’s changing into his jersey, he’ll text his girlfriend to tell her he’s changing and that she should not message him until the game is over. But that isn’t so bad, right? The man just doesn’t want any distractions.
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But here’s where it gets a little annoying. He’ll take a selfie of himself while he’s sitting on the toilet and then send it to 4 of his friends.
And that’s not all. When it comes to putting on his shoes, he always goes left sock and shoe first before right. Then, before he steps into the pitch, he makes sure to wet his gloves first. And finally, when he gets to his goal posts, he’ll hit the upright with his boots and then punch the net in the middle.
You see this guy repeat these rituals every matchday and you’re bound to get annoyed at some point. The friends who receive the selfies are probably the most annoyed of everyone.
But Courtois is not the only former Chelsea player with a weird pre-game ritual that involves the toilet.
3. John Terry
Back when Terry was still playing professional football at Chelsea, he had this special urinal at Stamford Bridge that he’d always use before every home game. And it didn’t matter if the urinal was occupied, he’d wait until it was free to use it.
If he doesn’t use that urinal, he won’t step out. And for most of his time at Stamford Bridge, he was the captain, so that meant his teammates had to wait for him. Must have been very annoying.
4. David James
If you watched David James play, then you definitely know how much of a very eccentric character he is. His different hairstyles alone gives it all away.
But what many didn’t know is how he used to get ready for games. This guy would not talk to anybody prior to kickoff, instead he would wait until all the urinals and bathroom stalls had been vacated and then go in and – wait for it – spit on all the walls.
That’s actually disgusting and surely annoying. Especially for the people who had to clean those bathrooms after the games.
5. Johan Cruyff
Yes, even 3-time Ballon d’Or winners have annoying habits. Back when Cruyff was with us and still one of the best players in the world with Ajax, he had this habit of always slapping the belly of his goalkeeper, Gert Bals, before every game. After he does that, he’d then go and spit chewing gum from his mouth into the opponent’s half just before kickoff.
You can imagine how annoyed his opponents would have been each time, not to talk of the goalie who knew what was coming each time Cruyff started making his way to him before kickoff.
But Cruyff outgrew that habit in the 70s, and we’re sure Gert Bals was the happiest about that.
6. Kolo Toure
These days, it’s pretty fashionable for players to be the last to come out of the dressing room. Most times, the star player of the team wants that honor while some others just don’t care. But Kolo Toure cared so much, perhaps a little too much. He always had to be the last one to step into the pitch no matter what.
That would have been alright if Toure was not obsessed about it, but he was.
One day, in a Champions League game for Arsenal, his teammate, William Gallas was receiving treatment at halftime and was not yet fit to join the team for the second half. So, what did Kolo Toure do? He waited on the sidelines and refused to enter until after Gallas. So, that meant that Arsenal started the second half with just 9 men.
And you know what made things worse that day? Kolo Toure ended up entering the pitch without the referee’s permission and that earned him a yellow card.
It just feels so good to see one person on this list today being punished for their annoying habit.
7. Sergio Goycochea
Are you sure you’re ready for this one?
So, Goycochea, Argentina’s goalkeeper back in the day, used to pee close to his goal post before penalty shootouts in order to bring his side goodluck.
It actually started incidentally at the 1990 World Cup. He really wanted to relieve himself just before the penalty shootout in the quarter final against Yugoslavia, but he was not allowed to leave the pitch, so he had to do his business beside his goal. Well, he ended up saving two penalties and helping Argentina advance to the semis, so he decided he’d make it a habit.
And in the semis against Italy, he did the same thing and it worked yet again as his penalty heroics took Argentina to the final.
And with the final against West Germany still tied at nil-nil heading to the final few minutes of the game, surely Goycochea was fantasizing about using his annoying habit to win Argentina the World Cup in back-to-back editions, but as the football gods would have it, he was eventually undone by a penalty. This time in normal time.
The West Germans got a penalty awarded to them in the 84th minute, so there wasn’t time for Goycochea to do his little ritual. Brehme converted for the Germans and that was enough to win the World Cup for them and also put a stop to Goycochea’s annoying habit.
8. Raymond Domenech
Domenech would go down as one of the worst coaches of the France national team. And that’s saying a lot considering he only missed out on a World Cup trophy in 2006 on penalties. But the disgraceful 2010 outing seemed to overshadow 2006 very quickly. You remember all the details from France’s 2010 World Cup, don’t you? Well, that’s not why Domenech is on this list.
The Frenchman is here because he had a habit of picking his players using horoscopes. Yes, horoscopes. Instead of looking at their levels of fitness and how they fit into the tactics, Domenech was looking to the skies for answers. Literally.
It was because of this that Pires didn’t go to the 2006 World Cup despite having just inspired Arsenal to their first ever Champions League final a month prior. Believe it or not, Pires didn’t travel to Germany with the French squad because he was a scorpio.
9. Malvin Kamara
Kamara didn’t bother nobody before football games. All he just wanted to do was watch Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory before any game. Yes, all 98 minutes of it. According to him, it gets him in the right mood. He also said it’s been his favorite movie since he was little and it calms him and gives him luck.
Kamara has played more than 200 games at senior level. Does that mean he has watched that one movie more than 200 times? One would have thought that at the 50th watching, he would have considered picking another movie.
10. Romeo Anconetani
We have decided to end this list with a president and not a player. Romeo Anconetani was the president of Pisa and he had a strange habit of throwing salt on the pitch before every home game. And the bigger the game, the more the salt he would throw on the pitch.
We hear that when Pisa went up against their local rivals, Cesena, in a really big game, Anconetani arranged for 26 kilograms of salt to be thrown on the pitch. That must have been one very spicy football game.
Well, there you have it. 10 really annoying habits footballers have that will blow your mind. Which of them blew your mind the most?
Also, if you know of more weird habits that footballers have, let us know in the comments.
