Football’s Most Arrogant XI (Plus Manager): Biggest Egos in the Game

April 25, 2025 Gareth Opinion and Debate
The Most Arrogant Players in Football

The world of professional football is one full of those that are the very best at what they do.

Whilst a lot of the players, managers and other personalities associated with the game manage to keep their egos in check in spite of their talent, there have been more than a few over the years that have struggled to remain humble.

Some have been difficult to manage, others have always appeared to be arrogant and many simply seem like terrible people who you wouldn’t want to spend any time with and yet somehow manage to be adored.

Obviously this is subjective, but here’s a look at Football’s Egotistical XI according to me:

Goalkeeper: Emiliano Martínez

There are numerous people in this list that might well have the ability to say that they can’t be called arrogant because of what they’ve achieved.

Emi Martínez might well fit into that category when you consider that he’s won the World Cup, but his ability as a goalkeeper is far outstripped by how good he thinks he is.

He failed to make it at Arsenal, enduring loan spells at the likes of Sheffield Wednesday and Wolverhampton Wanderers before becoming the Aston Villa first-choice ‘keeper.

The fact he’s been named the Best FIFA Goalkeeper twice he’s obviously not bad, he’s just not as good as he considers himself to be.

Left-Back: Ashley Cole

Nicknamed ‘Cashley’ by the Arsenal fans who he abandoned when he chose to join Chelsea in 2006, the fact that both supporters and critics consider him to be one of the best left-backs of all time means that the defender’s arrogance is well-founded.

Even so, arrogant he is and it has long wound people up the wrong way.

@petercrouchpod “I felt disrespected by Arsenal…” Ashley opens up about leaving his boyhood club. #arsenal #ashleycole ♬ original sound – ThatPeterCrouchPodcast

That sense of arrogance might well have come from when he was in an ongoing dispute over his wages with Arsenal and said, “I almost crashed my car” when he found out he was being offered £55,000 per week instead of £60,000.

He also cheated on his wife, Cheryl Cole, and described Major League Soccer as ‘an easy ride’.

Centre-Back: John Terry

When you have won everything that there is to win in the game and are widely considered to be one of the best centre-backs ever to play the game, perhaps you’re allowed to be arrogant.

Yet John Terry has long taken that to whole new levels, which has come to bite him on the backside on more than a few occasions during his career.

He engineered it so that he could take what would be the winning penalty in the Champions League final against Manchester United, for example, only to slip and miss it and hand the Red Devils the win.

When Chelsea eventually did win it he was suspended, but still appeared in full kit in order to join in the celebrations. A hateful arrogance.

Centre-Back: Sergio Ramos

Talent will lead to confidence, with many footballers needing to be extremely confident in order to make it at the highest level.

There is little question that Sergio Ramos did exactly that, winning five La Liga titles as well as four Champions Leagues with Real Madrid, plus two European Championships and a World Cup with Spain.

Yet when your confidence is matched with an aggressive style of play, there are always going to be accusations of arrogance levelled at you by supporters and opposition players.

Ramos put Mohamed Salah in a virtual arm lock in the Champions League final in 2018, for example, seemingly dislocating his shoulder. Real won the final, but he lost his colleagues’ respect.

Right-Back: Micah Richards

Is Micah Richards arrogant or confident? There has always been a fine line between the two, with Richards regularly demonstrating his confidence when working as a pundit for the likes of Sky Sports. He’s definitely likelable.

Having won the Premier League and FA Cup with Manchester City, albeit during the era when they were under investigation, he’ll feel entitled to any arrogance.

@atelevate2 Who thinks Micah might get fired for swearing?! #micahrichards #cbs #footballtiktok #fyp ♬ original sound – atelevate2

Of course, for some people such a constant display of confidence is always likely to annoy them.

There will be many who feel that Richards’ confident personality tips over into the arrogant on many an occasion, which is why there will always be plenty who don’t like what he did as a player or does as a pundit. Mainly, though, we needed a right-back.

Midfield: Joey Barton

There are many arrogant people on this list, some of whom have little cause for their arrogance. In the case of Joey Barton, though, his arrogance is matched not only with a lack of talent but also by the fact that he is a genuinely terrible person.

He was convicted of common assault in May 2008, for example, and kicked his wife in the head in 2025.

He once took to social media in order to claim that Eni Aluko had only been hired as a pundit for ‘diversity and inclusion quotas’, likening her and fellow critic Lucy Ward to Fred and Rose West, whilst using his platform to call Jeremy Vine a ‘big bike nonce’ and a ‘pedo defender’, all whilst having little to no talent of his own to speak of.

Midfield: David Beckham

Anyone who watched football in the 1990s would be under no illusion about David Beckham’s ability on the pitch, whilst his trophy haul includes the likes Premier League, La Liga and Champions League titles.

Even so, it is reported that he was the first player to ask for his own image rights as part of his contract.

@upshottowers Poor Becks was snubbed again… #beckham #davidbeckham #manutd ♬ original sound – The Upshot podcast

If believing that your image is so important as to claim the rights isn’t a sign of arrogance, it is difficult to know what is.

Having long been an LGBTQ+ ally, many in the community felt severely let down by Victoria Beckham’s husband when he decided to become a paid ambassador for the Qatar World Cup, in spite of LGBTQ+ people being illegal there.

Attacking Midfield: Eric Cantona

One of the defining images of Manchester United at the height of the club’s success is that of French player Eric Cantona stood with his collar flipped up, soaking in the admiration of the crowd.

He was an incredibly talented and versatile attacking player, named as one of the best living players in the world by Pelé in 2004.

”On this day, 25 January 1995, Manchester Utd footballing legend Eric Cantona kung fu kicked a fascist football hooligan. ”When I did the kung fu kick on the hooligan… I think maybe it’s like a dream for some, you know sometimes to kick these kind of people. So I did it for them. So they are happy.”

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— Stefan Zachrisson (@stezac.bsky.social) 25 January 2025 at 09:03

Known by United fans as ‘King Eric’, they voted him the club’s greatest ever player in 2003.

For many, though, he will always be remembered for the moment that he chose to kung-fu kick a Crystal Palace supporter during a match, for which he was handed an eight-month suspension from the game alongside community service.

Attacking Midfield: Cristiano Ronaldo (Captain)

If he were to read this piece, Cristiano Ronaldo would no doubt exclaim that of course he’s arrogant, he’s one of the best players to ever play the game.

There is no question that he is arrogant, however, not least of all because he has the gall to compare himself to the actual best player to ever play the game in Lionel Messi.

He would probably say that there is a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance, which is true, but the ‘siu’ celebration that he performed after scoring a goal stunk of someone being arrogant.

Add in the fact that he would often be disappointed at his team scoring a goal if he wasn’t the scorer and you can see why he’s our Egotistical XI’s captain.

Attack: Zlatan Ibrahimovic

If you want to talk about talent, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has to be in the conversation as one of the best strikers ever. With that in mind, it is perhaps no surprise that he was also one of the most arrogant players that the game has seen.

Having scored professionally across four different decades, it’s no wonder he played for so many great clubs.

If you refer to yourself in the third person, however, you are going to be considered to be massively arrogant, if not a little bit weird.

As a player, he once said, “I can’t help but laugh at how perfect I am”, which is about as egotistical a comment as someone can make. He said, “It’s not arrogance; it’s self-confidence”.

But it’s definitely arrogance.

Attack: Nicklas Bendtner

Whilst players like Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo were able to match their arrogance with ability, the same can’t be said of Nicklas Bendtner.

The Danish international might well point to his list of clubs that included Arsenal and Juventus and say that he showed plenty of ability during a career that spanned nearly a decade and a half, but that’s only half the story.

@goalglobal lord bendtner was one of the first true #football memes ⏪️ #soccer #premierleague #fyp ♬ Lazy Sunday – Official Sound Studio

Although he called himself one of the best strikers in the world, few of his actual accomplishments seem to marry up with that opinion. He has a cult following that refer to him as ‘Lord Bendtner’, but it’s not clear where he gave himself the nickname.

He ran for Danish Prime Minister in 2015, claiming it was a ‘joke’ but no one is quite sure if that’s true.

Manager: José Mourinho

Every team needs a manager and a Egotistical XI needs one who can match the arrogance of its players. Step forward José Mourinho, who referred to himself as the ‘Special One’ after being appointed the Chelsea manager in 2004.

His accomplishments might well match up with the title, but he’s no less arrogant for that fact.

jose mourinho to saudi arabia is just *chef’s kiss*. perfect match of arrogant self-aggrandizing jerk and murderous unrepentant regime.

— Batogato (@batogato.bsky.social) 19 January 2024 at 17:57

He struggled as a player, but learned his coaching skills at the shoulder of Bobby Robson before winning Champions League, Premier League and La Liga titles, amongst others.

Having jabbed rival managers in the eye, called Arsene Wenger a ‘voyeur’ and been used as the voice of the Pope in a Portuguese animation, his arrogance knows no bounds.