5 unscrupulous players in football at the moment
In every seed of good, there is always a piece of bad.
Football's the beautiful game for a reason, isn't it? It gifts happy memories and makes people forget their troubles and sorrows with a mere kick of the ball. Truly, it's an injustice to define the beauty of football in a limited set of words for it goes far more deeper than that.
However, as lucidly as Marian Wright Edelman puts it in the aforementioned quote, there's a dark side to every dazzling aspect of an entity. Same is the case with the beautiful game.
Lurking behind the beauty of sensational goals, magnificent passes and breathtaking dribbles are the mortifying acts of heinous fouls and cheating. To put it simply, those are the acts that define a dirty player.
On that note, let's have a look at five such roguish footballers in the current generation.
#5 Neymar (Paris Saint Germain)
Imagine overtaking one of the ugliest tacklers in terms of bookings throughout their respective careers. The Brazilian has accumulated 143 yellow cards and 8 red cards in his entire career at just 25 years of age, in contrast to the 34-year-old Pepe, who has 124 yellows and 6 reds under his belt.
The stat is astonishing since Pepe is more prone to going down in the referee's notebook owing to the position he plays in, unlike Neymar who is an attacker and has a lesser shot at committing fouls.
And yet, the PSG hit-man has been more frequent when it comes to be being booked for tackles.
The Brazilian has also earned a worldwide reputation for embracing the ground at the slightest of touches from defenders. The latest controversy he sparked was when he appeared to dive in PSG's first leg Round of 16 clash against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu.
So, is Neymar a dirty player in your opinion?
All stats via soccerway, transfermarkt