He mightn’t possess the silkiest of skills but he’s a right hard bastard.
Contenders:...
WAGEMANN OF SPORT
Until last season this wouldn’t even be a debate but since we’ve lost both Big Dunc AND Roy Keane the Premiership’s become a much softer place to be.
Gabriel Heinze and Jens Lehmann are up there in my ‘Premiership footballers most likely to one day murder someone’ list.
Stig Tøfting would have had this sewn up a few years back. Nowadays I’ve gotta go with...
well, Jens Lehmann dived once, didn’t he? That equals negative hardness points. Heinze just doesn’t have the physical presence (or the closely-cropped hair) to qualify.
My nomination would be Middlesbrough hard bastard extraordinaire Emmanuel Pogatetz.
I’m not sure if he’s psychotic enough to earn the “Hardest” label, but Momo Sissoko’s entire job seems to consist of kicking people.
Other suggestions: Danny “Tough” Shittu, and possibly even Gavin McCann, just because he seems to have a slightly unwise tendency to get up immediately after being fouled, even when the challenge appears to have partially severed his leg.
Also I reckon Morten Gamst-Pedersen’s harder than he looks.
“See you in training tomorrow, Andy!”
“High five!”
Lehman disqualified for pathetic spat with Drogba yesterday.
I like how Gabriel Heinze seems to smile after every assault, whether he’s the attacker or the victim.
Let’s give this award to some minor member of the royal bastard family, too.
‘ave it!
That black kid got a shoeing from his minders after the match, no doubt.
Lucas Neill’s maybe a good shout for this. A career spanning Millwall and Blackburn with as good a red card per game ratio as Roy Keane and with half of Jamie Carragher’s leg in his trophy cabinet must make him a contender.
Lucas Neill isn’t hard. Dirty bastard maybe, but hard I think not.
John Terry’s pretty uncompromising.
No takers for elbowed in the face didnt even notice Brian McBride?
pretty uncompromising = gurning cockernee gonk?
Brian McBride’s a good’n.
You need a good “bloodied but unbowed” picture to get in the Hard Hall of Fame
i can’t really put anyone forward for this unreservedly. firstly we must ponder teh nature of hardness; not everyone who can obv handle themselves counts (danny shittu = a beast but also a fairly gentle soul, likewise i imagine tom huddlestone = quite polite (have we discussed him btw ? he looks like he could be awesome), essien, and julio baptista isnt exactly a git from what ive seen) while all of the notorious premiership foulers that spring to mind don’t count either cos they are mostly crap and/or just often bitchy & lame (ben thatcher, michael brown, lucas neill, lehmann, drogba, khalid boulharouz currently altho he might yet come good.)
so i think it’s a respect issue as much as anything. a tuff competitor treading the fine line of snark without throwing toys out of pram, and the closest to that would be terry, heinze (recent shaky form has diminished this a tiny bit) and possibly erm lauren?
Lots of people mistakenly call big Bobo Balde a hard man when in actual fact all he is is big, very big. I honestly feel he genuinely attempts to win the ball in every challenge he makes, he’s just not very good at it and his sheer mass + velocity inevitably leads to people being broken.
(with apologies for bringing mickey mouse SPL into Best League in Teh World thread)
oh yeah, and what about rooney? still too much with the temper tantrums?
OMG the Drogba/Lehmann thing yesterday. HILARIOUS.
‘Hardness’ = packing down in the front row vs The French or The All-Blacks. Wrong sport, but it’s worth bearing in mind when considering some of the wusses mentioned upthread.
There was a thing on Football Focus on Saturday with a panel discussing diving and simulating injury. Will Carling was there and he was saying that in rugby when someone clattered you (fairly or otherwise) the first thing you thought was “don’t let him see that he hurt me”. Not too many footballers take that attitude.
they’re all too gay to be hard.
except tugay.
x-post—yes, writhing around on the Rugby pitch, even if you’re genuinely hurt, means you’re certain to get more of the same later on. But everything in rugby hurts anyway so...
I think Carling also said that if someone was blatantly play-acting their injury the other player should be allowed to hurt them for real. Excellent holistic approach imo.
Why aren’t they punishing players for diving, play-acting etc. using post-match video analysis? Yellow and red cards could and should be awarded by panel based on the recorded performance. This would surely cut it right out. Is it just too much of a logistical headache setting such an operation up?