While watching the Champion’s League final last week, seeing Juventus butchered against Barcelona, with a score of 1-3, I realised that a lot of the football players on the pitch sported tattoos, on their arms, legs and some on their chest. Don’t get me wrong, I love football, and I love tattoos, so this was heaven for me! But after seeing this, I got curious to see which footballers have the most tattoos.

David Beckham

David Beckham needs no introduction, especially to his career with Manchester United. Growing up, I remember that one of the footballers who started the tattoo-fashion was David Beckham. His tattoos are barely football related, bar the number ‘7’ which he claims is just for luck. Most of his tattoos are dedicated to the love of his life Victoria Beckham, and his children. He uses tattoos as a way to express himself and his feelings, for instance during the infamous allegations of his affair, he tattooed his upper right arm with an angel and the saying “In the Face of Adversity.”

Sergio Ramos Garcia

Sergio Ramos Garcia is a professional Spanish footballer who plays with the national football team apart from playing with Real Madrid. His first tattoo was a goblin, which he got when he was 14 years of age. He explains how his father was very angry when he found out, Amongst his other tattoos, one would find his parents initials and on his left middle finger, he has the initials of his three siblings. His siblings also have the same tattoo. Sergio has a Nelson Mandela quote on his ribs and also a football related tattoo on his right calf; in fact this shows the World cup and the date 11-07-2010.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Zlatan is the captain of Sweden, which is his national team and he also plays for a French football club called Paris Saint-Germain. The almost two meters tall footballer claims to have 50 starving people’s names tattooed all over his body. He wants to make the world aware of the fact that 1 in 9 people suffer from hunger everyday. He is using his body as a tribute to them; whenever we see him, we see them. What a guy!!

Kevin Boateng

Boateng, born in Germany however plays iternationally with Ghana as well as FC Schalke 04. He is also known as Kevin-Prince by his shirt name. At the age of 28 he is already quite covered in tattoos. The ink in Chinese has always been my favourite from him, not because of the language chosen but its meaning; 家族, 健康, 愛, 成功, and 信任, meaning “family, health, love, success and trust”.

Daniel Agger

Daniel Agger is the team captain for the Danish national team and also part of a local Danish football club by the name of Brøndby IF. He is mostly famous while he was part of Liverpool’s team. So much so when he inked himself on his knuckles with the abbreviation ‘YWNWA’ which means You will never walk alone. He has done this to remember his long time serving this team, and living in Liverpool (2006 to 2012). His back is filled with a massive Viking tattoo of  Holger Danske which comes from a Danish folk legend. He has the names of his wife and his two sons as well as his siblings on his body which shows he is also a family oriented man.