Top 10 instances where teammates fought each other

These cases of friendly fire showcase the hot-headed and volatile nature of the sport.

Football is an intensely emotional game. There are heavy stresses on and off the pitch, from the spectators to the athletes. And in any case including extreme competition, even among the most surprising peers, there are clashes of heads. Football is all about passion. 

The problem with passion is that it’s solely hinged on emotion, which causes people to act in a way they normally wouldn’t. The competitive nature of sports puts players under a lot of pressure and most of them are usually on a short fuse during matches. 

A slight provocation could start a fracas among rivals. Some teams have such intense rivalry that there’s always an undercurrent of animosity every time they meet. However, it’s not always the rivals who clash and you’ll occasionally find teammates having a go at it.

Here are the teammates who decided to forego the opposition and duke it out among themselves.

10. Aleksandar Mitrovic vs Aboubakar Kamara

It sounds incredibly hard to start a fight during a yoga session, but there was still bad blood between Aleksandar Mitrovic and Aboubakar Kamara after the latter stole the ball away from the Serbia international when Fulham was awarded a penalty against Huddersfield and missed.

Only been a few days since Kamara was criticized by Ranieri for taking a penalty over Huddersfield after robbing the ball from Mitrovic, the official penalty taker of the team. Kamara's relations with Ranieri also broke down after this incident.

9. Joey Barton vs Ousmane Dabo

One of the other popular football stars with a sharp tongue was Joey Barton. In his 2007 battle, Ousmane Dabo, his teammate, was his rival. Barton hit Dabo hundreds of times in a workout session, in One of the worst teammate fights in the history of football, sufficient to take Dabo to the clinic. 

Dabo was left unconscious and covered in blood on the ground after being repeatedly punched by Barton in Manchester City training. Since Dabo won his fight in court, Barton finally went to prison and was sentenced to 4 months in jail. He paid Dabo for the injuries as well. Joey Barton was suspended by the Football Association for 6 games, with another 6 banned for attacking Ousmane Dabo. Barton had recently acknowledged the compensation for harassment and he was fined £25,000.

8. Emmanuel Abdebayor vs Nicklas Bendtner

Emmanuel Adebayor is another player with a form for this sort of thing, having fought with Kolo Toure in Manchester City training in 2011 on the eve of their clash with their former club Arsenal. When Adebayor and Bendtner began fighting, Arsenal was losing against Spurs in 2009, and with a broken nose, Bendtner walked away. Adebayor later confirmed that one of the top soccer fights between teammates between him and Bendtner began with his refusal to take off his indoor trainers. 

"At Arsenal, there was a regulation that no player is supposed to come with trainers or shoes into the locker room. I can't understand why he came with his trainers always," Adebayor told the media. Then Nicklas was cornered by him: "Nicklas, you're a player, I'm a player,' Adebayor informed him." Maybe I'm higher than you, maybe you're better than me, but you should consider all. There are laws that dictate you not to come into the locker room with your trainers. Take those off. "Bendtner never respected the rule, and things proceeded from there. I'm unable to accept it."

7. Arjen Robben vs Franck Ribery

The wingers dovetailed brilliantly in tormenting opposition full-backs for Bayern Munich over the 2010s but fought at half-time during a Champions League semi-final clash against Real Madrid in 2012 after an argument over who should take a free-kick. Franck Ribery reportedly punched Arjen Robben, although Bayern refused to comment on the incident.

Robben said in the media “We’ve always got on really well and it exploded between us once, but the incident only made us stronger. “It was really a shame. We’ve played together for such a long time and experienced so much together. Actually, it doesn’t tell the whole story, actually, it is really just one incident in eight years.”

6. Alan Shearer vs Keith Gillespie

You can also recognize feelings getting the best of players in the middle of a soccer game. Yet that doesn't justify how cutlery contributed to Keith Gillespie being placed in the clinic by Alan Shearer in 1997 when the two were at Newcastle United. "Gillespie told the media," We were away on a half-season holiday, and I unintentionally dropped some cutlery off the plate. He looked over and said, 'Take that up,' and I really didn't like how he talked to me. 

"I only turned around and said, 'Correctly. Now outside! 'And on the challenge, he took me up. I didn't think he would have done that, however, I was a little too proud to sit down. We eventually went out, and I took a shot and missed it, and he caught me. "I was only in the hospital for a night. Since I fall and damaged my head on a pot of plants when he injured me. I've been unconscious. "The very next day, Alan Shearer came and visited me, and we had a conversation about it.

5. Sadio Mane vs Leroy Sane

The two forwards were once rivals as Liverpool and Man City slugging it out for Premier League titles, but you’d have thought that would all be water under the bridge now that they’re team-mates at Bayern Munich. Mane was so incensed by something Sane did during Bayern’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City that he gave him a slap in the dressing room after the match.

The Germany international has since been spotted with a bust lip and Mane is expected to apologize to the rest of the Bayern squad as a result. Mane is suspended for the next league game and will be fined by the club.

4. David Batty vs Graeme Le Saux

Blackburn had endured a dismal Champions League campaign after winning the Premier League and travelled to Spartak Moscow on matchday five still searching for their first win of the group stage. Only 4 minutes into the match, after looking for the ball, Batty and Le Saux clashed. Arriving at pace, the toughest of the two inevitably was Le Saux, with the collision dropping the defender on his knees. David Batty stood on his feet, however, there was nothing he could do to stop the subsequent series of mistakes.

When the action finally stopped for a foul on Tim Sherwood, it became clear that the exchange had gotten nasty. Graeme threw the first hit at the incoming Batty's neck with a straight left and looked to be tied up for yet another until Sherwood interfered, with the captain receiving his own supreme thump for his worries.

Batty did not back away from the fight, proceeding to exchange barbs with Graeme even after the interference of Sherwood and numerous demands to leave. In any event, until the subsequent interference of teammates eventually saw things settle down, the confrontation between the two lasted for several minutes. 

3. Lee Bowyer vs Keiron Dyer

In the last ten minutes of their match at St James' Park, Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer found themselves in a confrontation, back in 2005. The pressure of the match was passed to the player's hands to the horror of all attending, and the battle culminated in lots of players dividing them, including their own rivals. The incident ended in a 7-match suspension for Bowyer, embarrassing the teammates and their manager.

The two were forced to apologize publicly for their behaviour. This battle is by far the most notable in the entire existence of the Premier League, and it happened during a game when Newcastle United F.C. were soundly thrashed and were down to 10 men indeed. The altercation arose as Dyer never provided passes for him during the game, as per Bowyer. The two were sent off, the team was defeated 3-0.

2. Hugo Lloris vs Heung Min Son

Tottenham earned a drab 1-0 win over Everton in July 2020, but the biggest talking point came when the half-time whistle blew. Despite being in the lead, Hugo Lloris was unhappy with Son Heung-min for failing to track back and the goalkeeper confronted his team-mate at the interval.

The pair had to be separated by team-mates Giovani Lo Celso and Harry Winks, although they eventually embraced each other full-time. Instead of criticizing his players, manager Jose Mourinho said that the incident was “beautiful”.

1. Zlatan Ibrahimovic vs Oguchi Onyewu

Zlatan has the ability to really get tangled with his teammates, trying to smash the legs of Rafael van der Vaart at Ajax and hitting Jonathan Zebina in the eyes at Juventus. However, his most notable fight took place in Milan, where he fought with Oguchi Onyewu.  As Ibrahimovic described in his autobiography," I hit in his face, and we fired at one another. We tried to rip the limbs from each other's limbs. It's been vicious. We were flipping around, kicking, and headbutting each other. We were insane and angry; it was like death and life."

After Onyewu made a careless tackle, Zlatan, a professional in Taekwondo with a knack for hitting his teammates, got into one of the biggest fights on the football pitch with the strong USA international. To separate them from fighting it took 10 coaches and teammates.