The beautiful game. Joga bonito, as the Nike advertising campaign has dubbed it. However you look at it, football (OK, soccer) is blowing up real big and the World Cup, which begins this week, is huge.
Footballers have special relationships with their barbers. Lyon forward Fred recently changed his locks from long and flowing to close-cropped, and credited his barber with a changed worldview and recently improved form. The beautiful game indeed, but what’s up with some of these players’ hair? When you look at some of the on-the-ball skills that these guys boast–flicks, shakes, drags, fancy dribbles–you wonder why the coif can’t match the foot style.
This season has brought about a renaissance in hair. Gone are the classics of past years such as Abel Xavier, who looked like Stripe from the film “Gremlins,” or the electrified poodles Rene Higuita or Marco Etcheverry. But there are still plenty of penalties to be awarded, so even though the World Cup comes every four years, here’s the annual Q Bad “Soccer” Hair Awards.
DIDIER DROGBA
Cote d’Ivoire
Dude. Come on. We love Cote d’Ivoire (formerly Ivory Coast) star Drogba’s playing style. He’s a big, aggressive striker (forward) who can cause problems for any defense in the world. He plays for English Premier League champions Chelsea, when he isn’t raising cain for his national side. And his hair is like a process that’s lost its mind, alternately flying about or drooping around his ears, held in place with a glorified rubber band. That’s just nasty.
BOUBACAR BARRY
Cote d’Ivoire
What are the odds? Two players from the same national side making the finals? Rough deal, but have a gander at Barry’s coif. It’s a chili bowl version of Drogba’s. We aren’t sure what it is with the African nations. Until recently, Togo’s Emmanuel Adebayor had a greasepit on his head that made Drogba look like a Vidal Sassoon commercial. He trimmed it. Adebayor should give Barry his barber’s card.
CARLOS PUYOL
Spain
We know who Puyol’s barber is. Nobody. This defender, the soul of recent Champions League winners FC Barcelona, scares opponents with his hair. It’s a mop. A sweaty, mangled mop. To his credit, he doesn’t opt for the headband that dorks up other pro footballers. To his detriment, his mangled, matted tresses argue for a player being red carded (ejected) just for his ‘do.
OLIVER KAHN
Germany
This year the iconic, legendary goalkeeper is No. 2 on the Cup squad’s depth chart. But he still bellows, still intimidates and is still a strong man in the nets. We really suspect that he’s No. 2 because of what happens to his hair during a match. He looks fairly normal–challenged, but normal–when not tending the nets, but once perspiration enters the picture, his ‘do becomes a wild mullet-in-training.
DJIBRIL CISSE
France
“Flamboyant” is the word often used for this striker, who changes his hair like most players change shirts. But in almost any of his iterations, save the brief time when he was close-cut, his choices have been, shall we say, misguided. From discolored cornrows to our favorite, the yellow Brillo pad with matching beard, Cisse makes the 2006 hair team easily.
PAVEL NEDVED
Czech Republic
Is it just us, or is it mostly strikers who are coif-challenged? Nedved is the great Czech hope, who must have really liked Prince Valiant comics as a kid because as an adult … well … just look. His professional team is the presently embattled Serie A leader Juventus, and we don’t want to know who his barber is.
ARTHUR BOKA
Cote d’Ivoire
I know it seems like we’re picking on the Ivory Coast, but we’re just the messengers. Boka also sports the Drogba Droop, often with an absurd center part that makes you wonder if his defensive gifts aren’t partly due to opposing wingers and forwards running toward him, then coming up short as they think “What the … what is up with that hair?”
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kmwilliams@tribune.com
