Judas XI: The biggest back-stabbers in football 🤬 | OneFootball

It’s Easter!

What better time to put together an XI of football’s biggest Judases? So we’ve done just that.

Goalkeeper

Manuel Neuer

A lifelong Schalke fan, a product of the academy, club captain. People were very angry when he opted to join Bayern Munich. Judas chants, and worse, rained down on him and there were some very creative banners displayed when he returned.

“We mourn the loss of M. Neuer – 2005 to 2011 – risen again as a characterless puppet.”

Defence

Abel Xavier

The last player to make the move across Stanley Park, Xavier was just the second to play for both Merseyside clubs since 1959 when he went from Everton to Liverpool in 2002.

Controversial, to say the least.

Sol Campbell

A man welcomed back to White Hart Lane with Judas signs and balloons.

Sol Campbell was Tottenham captain, and told Sky Sports he wasn’t leaving. He ran his contract down to exit for free. And then he joined Arsenal, where he immediately won the double.

He will never be welcome back in N17.

Ashley Cole

We feel a bit bad putting Ashley Cole, who left Arsenal after the club changed their contract offer to him at the last moment, here.

But you can’t argue with the fact Arsenal fans printed his face on fake pound notes after he moved to Chelsea. That’s a level of disdain that has to get you into the XI.

Midfield

Paul Ince

Ince was a Manchester United icon after joining the club from West Ham. He did eventually leave Old Trafford but, after two seasons with Inter, he returned to England …  to Liverpool.

And went on to score for the Reds against United and celebrate in front of the Kop. It did not go down well among United fans.

There’s a reason no player has directly moved between the two clubs since 1964.

Luís Figo

How much do you have to hate someone to throw a pig’s head at them?

When Luis Figo – who had captained Barcelona, put them back on the global footballing map, and spoken about his pride as an adopted Catalan – moved to Real Madrid, fans of the the Camp Nou club were livid.

And understandably so.

Frank Lampard

Chelsea’s greatest ever goalscorer, and perhaps their greatest ever player, joined West Ham at 16 and stayed there until he was 23.

His dad, an ex-West Ham player, was the Hammers’ assistant manager at the time but Lampard Jr did one after his old man was poorly treated and left Upton Park.

He moved across London to West Ham’s hated rivals, was taunted as Big Fat Frank and became a legend.

Mario Götze

The boy wonder, the face of Borussia Dortmund’s early 2010s success, and he threw it all away to move to hated rivals Bayern Munich.

The anger at the Westfalenstadion was so strong that Götze warmed up in the tunnel on his return … only  to come off the bench and score the opener.

Now back at Dortmund, and accepted again, there was a time when Götze was arguably the most disliked footballer in all of Germany.

Ronaldo

The only man to score on both sides of a Clásico. The only man to score for both sides in a Milan derby.

Ronaldo isn’t really hated anywhere, though. An interesting thing, considering he clearly has no loyalties to speak of.

Carlos Tevez

It doesn’t get much more back-stabbing than leaving Manchester United, joining Manchester City, then holding up a sign that says “R.I.P. Fergie” after winning the Premier League title at the Etihad.

But that’s exactly what Carlos Tevez did.

Zlatan Ibrahimović

A man who starred for Juventus, Inter and Milan is clearly looking for controversy.

Well, he got more of it than he’d ever bargained for last year. Soon after a statue of Ibrahimović was revealed at Malmö, where he started his career, the big Swede invested in bitter rivals Hammarby and said they were the club with “the greatest potential to become the biggest in Scandinavia.”

Needless to say, his statue didn’t last long.