The starting XI of soccer players we do not want to fight

My colleagues Jon Bois and Spencer Hall wrote an article today about the 3 people each of them would never want to fight, so I’m going to do the same for soccer because the World Cup is over and what else is going on.

These are active players, for the record. If it were former players it would just be Jan Koller, Gattuso and Vinnie Jones over and over again.

GK — Marko Dmitrović

Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images

Dmitrović is one of the goalies for the Serbian national team, plays his club ball for SD Eibar, and is 6’4 and weighs 200 pounds. He also is balding a little bit, which makes me fear there is some pent-up rage inside of him. I am very afraid of this man and he would beat my ass.

LB — Felipe Luis

Felipe Luis isn’t huge, but the dude is proper hard, and I would have no interest in fighting him. Here he is nearly tearing Lionel Messi’s ACL out of his leg.

I am also very afraid of this man and he would beat my ass.

CB — Giorgio Chiellini

Photo by Phil Cole/Getty Images

Yeah I don’t have many hard and fast rules in life but “don’t fuck with 6’2 Italians whose faces look like they’ve seen a punch or two” is one of them.

CB — Martin Skrtel

Photo by Handout/UEFA via Getty Images

I think one of Martin Skrtel’s many tattoos reads “I am not afraid of anyone and I could so very easily beat your ass.”

RB — Dani Alves

Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images

It’s the eyes. You don’t fuck with a guy with eyes like that.

LM — Marko Arnautović

Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

Arnautović is a pretty technical player who likes to dribble people and score goals and he would put all that fancy shit away the second the rubber hit the road.

CM — Radja Nainggolan

Photo by Paolo Bruno/Getty Images

A man with tattoos like that and that haircut has nothing to lose. I think his socks split out of fear in the photo above. I want none of that. Absolutely none of that.

CM — Arturo Vidal

Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images

Nah.

RM — Nacer Chadli

Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images

We all laugh at Chadli, but he’s 6’2, 187 pounds and HE’S HEARD ALL OF OUR LAUGHTER AND HE IS PISSED.

F — Xherdan Shaqiri

Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images

It’s a bit humbling to understand implicitly that a man who is maybe 5’5 could beat the everliving shit out of me, but that is what we have here in the case of Xherdan Shaqiri.

F — Adebayo Akinfenwa

Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images

Akinfenwa is by all accounts of the most wonderful people in all of soccer, a great man and teammate, and dear lord the thought of what that man would do to me in a fight has me shaking.

Coach: Diego Simeone

Photo by Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images

Everything we’ve covered, plus he’s got dad strength now. Holy hell this man would beat my ass.

Who did I miss? Hit up the comments. Let’s talk this out.