It's easy to assume that all football teammates get on. After all, they spend pretty much every day with each other. Whether it's training, eating, travelling, showering or sharing incredible moments on the pitch, teammates can form extremely close bonds.
However, with all that time spent together, it's only natural that some players will clash. There are bound to be many different personalities at an entire football club who simply don't get on. Therefore, we wanted to look at 10 sets of teammates who didn't exactly see eye-to-eye. In fact, they openly hated each other.
Emmanuel Frimpong and Samir Nasri
This feud began between the two former Arsenal players in 2011 when Nasri slammed Frimpong for getting sent off during a 2-0 loss to Liverpool. Frimpong was just 19 years old at the time and it was his second Premier League appearance for the club.
"Nobody needed to tell me that what I did was stupid," Frimpong told the Athletic. "After the game, everybody came into the changing room and Arsene [Wenger] was quiet. Then Nasri basically stood up in front of everybody and said we lost the game because of me.
"OK, I can understand that, but I was thinking, 'Why would somebody — especially me playing, I think that was like my second game — why would any professional do that to a young player in that kind of moment?'"
A few months later, Jack Wilshere took to social media to wish Nasri good luck after he left Arsenal to sign for Manchester City. Frimpong saw Wilshere's tweet and replied: "Pffffff come on Jack."
The comment did not go unnoticed by Nasri, who rang Frimpong to confront him. Frimong revealed: "I took the phone and it was Nasri on the phone threatening me, telling me that when he sees me, this that. I told him, 'I'm not one of the players that's afraid of you. If you want us to sort it out as men, we can sort it out as men'.
"To be honest, at that time when he left Arsenal, I could tell him what I actually thought about him because he wasn't there so I could basically let him know my feelings. So I just told him that I don't like him, I don't respect him and I will never respect him as a professional player."
He added: "For me, the truth is I've never liked Nasri and I will never, ever like this guy. Even if he gives me five billion dollars, I will still not like him."
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Rafael van der Vaart
The two former Ajax teammates clashed during an international friendly between Sweden and the Netherlands. Ibrahimovic injured Van der Vaart and the Dutchman believes it was deliberate.
In his 2013 autobiography, Zlatan revealed that he threatened to break both of Van der Vaart's legs.
The striker told his teammate, per the Daily Mail: "I didn't injure you on purpose, and you know that. If you accuse me again I'll break both your legs, and that time it will be on purpose."
Van der Vaart opened up about their frosty relationship in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2018.
He said: "Yes, he did say that [I'll break your legs], but Zlatan said it to everyone. It’s also true that around that time things just weren’t working between the two of us, but I would rather be in a team with people who are honest, like him, even if it means there are a few arguments. But there wasn’t a specific moment we fell out – we generally didn’t get along well."
Kolo Toure and William Gallas
Toure and Gallas had the potential to be a fantastic centre-back pairing at Arsenal. But their relationship wasn't exactly strong.
"When you play with somebody and you don't even talk to each other on the pitch it's really difficult," Toure said in 2010, per The Guardian. "Me and Gallas... we didn't talk to each other at all."
Their relationship was so poor that Toure realised that he had to leave for the good of the team. He added: "One of us had to go and it was me. It was coming down to me really because I didn't want to put the team in a difficult position, so I was the one who said I wanted to go."
Jens Lehmann and Manuel Almunia
More clashes at Arsenal. Lehmann wasn't too happy with playing second fiddle to Almunia in the 2007/08 campaign.
Almunia said during his time in north London, per talkSPORT: "I know he hates me. Every morning I wake up I know it's going to be the same. I've had to put up with it every day since he was out of the team and even before then.
"I wake up and I know what it's going to be like. But I don't care about him any more. He can say what he likes."
Speaking to The Athletic in 2019, Almunia recalled: "The problems came when I was very excited and very fit, training well with so much energy and at that same time [Lehmann] wasn't having his best time at Arsenal, so when Arsene Wenger decided to change the No.1, he's a winner and he took it very badly."
Mauro Icardi and Maxi Lopez
We probably all know why Icardi and Lopez aren't exactly friends... It began when Icardi and Lopez played together for Sampdoria.
Lopez offered Icardi a place to stay at his home. It didn't go to plan as Icardi would have an affair with Lopez's wife, Wanda Nara.
Nara would eventually leave Lopez for Icardi, and Lopez made his feelings clear when he refused to shake Icardi's hand ahead of a meeting against Inter Milan in 2014.
More recently, Nara accused Icardi of cheating on her but the pair are still together.
Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole
We explained how, despite playing together at Manchester United for four seasons and enjoying great success together, Sheringham and Cole weren't friends.
Cole accused Sheringham of ruining his England debut in 1995. Cole was replacing Sheringham, who didn't make eye contact and refused his offer of a handshake.
"I didn't want to play the game after that," Cole told The Daily Telegraph in 2019. "That's how embarrassed I felt.
"Snubbed on the line when you're making your debut as a young kid! I think I hit the bar in the game but I couldn't get it out of my mind. From that moment on, I knew Sheringham was not for me."
The pair were reunited two years later when Cole joined Sheringham at Manchester United.
"We played together for years. We scored a lot of goals. I never spoke a single word to him," Cole added. "I would rather sit down and have a cuppa with Neil Ruddock, who broke my leg in two places in 1996, than with Teddy Sheringham, who I've pretty much detested for the past 15 years,"
Jamie Carragher and El-Hadji Diouf
Diouf wasn't the most likeable person and has taken on Liverpool legends Steven Gerrard and Carragher since leaving Anfield.
But it's Carragher who appears to hate Diouf the most.He called Diouf "the worst footballer" he played with at Liverpool.
"The worst has to be El Hadji Diouf," Carragher said, per the Daily Star. "Actually, I quite enjoyed playing against him as you could kick him then, can't kick your own players."
Meanwhile, Diouf said, per SportsJoe: "The difference between Jamie and me is that I am a world-class player and he is a s**t. The type of s**t that writes a book and mentions me all the time. Me, in my book, he does not warrant one phrase: he's a f*****g loser."
Diouf launched another rant against Carragher in 2019, saying, per Goal: "Jamie Carragher, he has two left feet. He's a right-footed player who has two left feet and he played because he was a Scouser.
"If he was not a Liverpool kid, he was never going to make the career he did. But I had the [balls] to go out of my house and cash in on my talent here in Europe. Was it necessary for him to go to Inter, to Real Madrid? Has he had any offers in his life?"
Lothar Matthaus and Stefan Effenberg
Matthaus and Effenberg were teammates for both Bayern Munich and the German national team. So you'd think they'd get on quite well... Wrong.
Matthaus' failure to take a penalty for his country in the 1990 World Cup final didn't go down well with Effenberg.
Effenberg called Matthaus a 'quitter' in his autobiography, and dedicated an entire chapter to his former teammate titled: 'What Lothar Matthaus knows about football.' It was a single blank page.
John Fashanu and Lawrie Sanchez
Wimbledon were called the 'Crazy Gang' for a reason. Despite winning the FA Cup final together in 1988, a serious feud between two key players was occurring. The two clashed in training, with Fashanu recalling the story in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2002.
He started: "I don’t like Sanch and he doesn’t like me. Sanch and I had a disagreement in training. Sanch gave me a shot and, give him credit, it wasn’t a bad shot. I thought I’d teach Sanch a lesson and gave a sweep of the legs, but Sanch has calves like most people have thighs and he didn’t move. So I gave him another couple, but Sanch came back at me.
"So I thought, 'I’m gonna take this guy out', and I hit him with one of the best shots I’d been training with – BAM! Take that, Sanch! – right in the solar plexus, a shot that would supposedly knock a horse down. And still he stood there. Then Terry Burton came over to break us up."
Fashanu's only regret, he claimed, was not striking Lawrie Sanchez sooner.
Ruud van Nistelrooy and Patrick Kluivert
Kluivert attended a rave in Amsterdam following the Netherlands' Euro 2004 first leg playoff. It didn't go down well with Van Nistelrooy.
“I can't do it all myself,” Van Nistelrooy told reporters, per FourFourTwo. “I can't be the only Dutch player who closes down and leads from the front.”