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The modern footballer is well groomed, sharply dressed and often carries a tan that no English winter could produce. Facial hair has crept back in recent years, but it tends to arrive sculpted and professionally maintained. It was not always so. For a generation, a big moustache or an untamed beard was worn proudly by some of the greatest players in the world and by plenty of honest journeymen too, and it made them look a little more like the people watching from the stands.
Here, in no particular order, are ten of the finest examples.
The international stars
Alexi Lalas
Whatever Alexi Lalas achieved as a central defender, the enormous ginger goatee and the flowing hair are what most people remember from the 1994 World Cup on home soil. The football deserves credit too. Lalas became the first American to play in Serie A when he joined Padova after that tournament, he was inducted into the US National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2006, and he later served as president and general manager of LA Galaxy until 2008. A career as a television pundit followed, as did a parallel life as a rock musician.
Ruud Gullit
The man who coined "sexy football" was the driving force behind the Netherlands side that won Euro 88 and the AC Milan team that won back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and 1990. With his dreadlocks and moustache he was impossible to miss on any pitch in Europe. Gullit won the Ballon d'Or in 1987, then moved into management, lifting the FA Cup as Chelsea's player-manager in 1997 before less happy spells at Newcastle, Feyenoord and LA Galaxy. He also released a single, "Not the Dancing Kind", in 1984, joining the long and uneven list of singing footballers.
Carlos Valderrama
Nobody has ever had that much hair and the patience to perm it so precisely. Beneath it was a gifted playmaker who controlled matches with short, unhurried passes and helped Colombia reach three successive World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 1998. He was voted South American Footballer of the Year in 1987 and 1993, and for a certain generation of gamers he is fixed in memory from the cover of International Superstar Soccer 98, the sequel to the game remembered in this retrospective of International Superstar Soccer 64. His home city of Santa Marta later unveiled a giant bronze statue of him, bushy bronze hair included.
Rudi Völler
Völler's perm and moustache earned a less pleasant place in World Cup history in 1990. During West Germany's second-round match against the Netherlands in Milan, he and Frank Rijkaard became locked in a running battle that ended with both men sent off, and Rijkaard spat into Völler's hair as they left the pitch, something he later apologised for. Völler recovered to play in the final in Rome, winning the penalty that Andreas Brehme converted to beat Argentina 1–0. A prolific striker for Werder Bremen, Roma, Marseille and Bayer Leverkusen, he later coached Germany to the 2002 World Cup final and resigned after a group-stage exit at Euro 2004. In 2023 he returned to the German FA as sporting director.
Doctors, dancers and goalkeepers
Socrates
Tall, slender and unhurried, Socrates qualified as a doctor of medicine while playing professional football, and his neatly trimmed beard suited the part perfectly. He was one of the most elegant midfielders of any era, the captain of the celebrated Brazil sides at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. Against Italy in Barcelona in 1982 he slid a shot inside Dino Zoff's near post from a tight angle, only for Brazil to lose 3–2 to the eventual champions. He never lifted the trophy, though his younger brother Raí was part of the squad that did in 1994. In 2004, at the age of 50, he made a brief and much-publicised comeback with Garforth Town in the Northern Counties East League. He died in December 2011, aged 57.
Bruce Grobbelaar
The Zimbabwean goalkeeper and his moustache were part of the furniture at Anfield through the most successful decade in Liverpool's history. His wobbling "spaghetti legs" routine during the penalty shoot-out against Roma in the 1984 European Cup final is still replayed every time a goalkeeper tries to unsettle a penalty taker, and he collected a string of league titles through the 1980s. In 1994 he was accused of match fixing; he was cleared after two trials in 1997, although the affair followed him for years afterwards in the courts.
Abel Xavier
The bleached hair and bleached beard combination was a bold look, and not everyone agreed it worked. Xavier was a tough, athletic full-back who helped Portugal reach the semi-finals of Euro 2000. That night ended badly for him: in the closing minutes of extra time he blocked a shot on the line with his arm, Zinedine Zidane scored the penalty, and France went through to the final on a golden goal. Later, during a spell at Middlesbrough, he failed a drugs test and was banned for a year. He finished his playing career at LA Galaxy in 2008.
David Seaman
Seaman's moustache was a permanent feature, and for a while he paired it with a ponytail. He was the rock in goal for Arsenal and England through the 1990s, which makes it a little unfair that two moments dominate his story: Nayim's lob from near the halfway line in the final minute of the 1995 Cup Winners' Cup final, and Ronaldinho's looping free kick in the 2002 World Cup quarter-final against Brazil. The better memory belongs to Euro 96, when he saved Gary McAllister's penalty against Scotland at Wembley moments before Paul Gascoigne scored one of England's most famous goals.
The honest professionals
Des Bremner
With his wild eyes and full beard, Des Bremner could have walked straight onto a film set as a mad scientist. Instead he was the tireless engine of the Aston Villa side that won the league title in 1980–81 and the European Cup in Rotterdam in 1982. Scotland gave him only a single cap, a meagre reward for that level of club success. In 1984 he followed former Villa manager Ron Saunders across the city to Birmingham City, before later spells with Fulham, Walsall and Stafford Rangers.
Brian Kilcline
Big, bearded and fond of very short shorts, Brian Kilcline looked like a soggy, disgruntled St Bernard and tackled accordingly; a man nicknamed "Killer" earns that reputation the hard way. He captained Coventry City to their 1987 FA Cup win over Tottenham at Wembley, then moved on to Newcastle United in the early Kevin Keegan years. His moustache was the kind of thing that has more or less vanished from the English top flight.
For anyone who can name a player from his whiskers alone, the facially fuzzy sticker quiz is the natural next stop. More moustaches, and a few more perms, can be found among the cartoon characters of world football, where Valderrama makes a second appearance and the hair is somehow even bigger.