Brede Hangeland has named his 'laziest XI' and it's savage AF!
Whenever you read an off-colour quote from a player or manager, it's generally worth remembering that they're unlikely to have just randomly blurted it out. More often than not a journalist will have teased the comments out of them, before reporting without context and then standing back as it all kicks off.
That excuse isn't gonna wash with Brede Hangeland here though. In a recent appearance on a Norwegian football podcast, the former Fulham and Crystal Palace centre half provided an unprovoked, man by man hatchet job on his most work-shy teammates from over the years.
Spectacular shithousery! And the Emmanuel Adebayor story is worth the admission fee alone...
GOALKEEPER
Wayne Hennessey
"Used to just lie on one of those thick blue mats in the gym while we were working out."
DEFENDERS
Chris Baird
"Whenever we did cardio, he asked the coach: ‘When can we go and play football?’"
Zdenek Grygera
"Great guy, good friend. When he arrived at Fulham, he told the coach: ‘I don’t do weights.’ He didn’t."
Erik Hagen
"As a centre-back, he was a big, strong but it must have all come from his genes. Not from gym work."
MIDFIELDERS
Wilfried Zaha
"Amazing physique, athletic, huge potential. Some Mondays, he’d come over to me and say: ‘I’m starting my programme now!’ He’d do five push-ups, sigh, then leave. He would have been incredible if he was serious."
Jimmy Bullard
"Great player, incredibly weak. Never interested in the gym. Clear-cut pick for laziest team."
Mousa Dembele
"Maybe the best I played with. But struggles with his physique. Never lifted weights. Has incredible balance. Had the right to not work out."
Bryan Ruiz
"Don’t think he even knew where the gym was. Always wore long sleeves and gloves. If it was cold or away to Stoke, he’d never come along."
FORWARDS
Bobby Zamora
"Strong but hated the gym. Whenever it was time for dead lifts, he’d start feeling his hamstring. Every single time we went to the gym."
Dimitar Berbatov
"If only he ran. Never seen a man get so many massages in my life. Whenever we were in the gym, Berbatov was getting a massage. I knew the guy who gave him the massages. Usually at the end of the season, the players would give all the physios a gift. But he’d massage Berbatov for hundreds of hours during the season and he would get nothing."
Emanuel Adebayor
"I was marking Adebayor in midfield. Suddenly he said: ’Ah, I’m hungry.’ I replied: ‘What?’ He said: ‘I can’t wait for the game to finish. I’m so hungry. Do you know a good restaurant in London?’ At Palace, when we had strength workouts, he would sit in the gym with a cup of coffee and a muffin. He was being paid by City, Tottenham and Palace at the same time, and he was sitting in the gym drinking coffee."
Wow. Though at this point I think you sort of have to respect Adebayor for all the fucks he doesn't give, don't you? It's not like the clubs who continue to sign him haven't been warned.
But anyway, Hangeland wasn't done there. He also had some things to say about his former managers...
Felix Magath
"I always try to see the good in people. But Magath was an awful human being.
"He had penalising extra workouts. After losing one game, we got back home to Fulham at 1am. Yet he then forced us to run laps around and around between 1am and 2am. It was absurd."
Roy Hodgson
"When he came to Viking we realised he was a quote machine. He was funny without knowing it. He was frustrated, I mean, here is a man of the world who for some reason is in Stavanger.
"During one of the first training sessions at Viking he got frustrated at the poor training and he said to us, but mostly to himself I think, ‘I could be in Monaco smoking a cigar but here I am, pushing myself for pocket money’.
"Our confidence levels fell as we realised how bad we were.
"Roy was mostly in control but was a very bad loser. Once he got so mad at Fulham he kicked a metal bag, broke his toe and had to be attended to by doctor."
Alan Pardew
"Was Pardew a playboy? I guess. Everyone’s seen him dancing in the FA Cup final and not all the players were happy with that. But he was a cool guy. He was more interested in attack than defence though for sure. After I told him I was retiring he sent me to scout my own replacement. I ended up recommending James Tomkins."
And there ends Brede Hangeland's many and varied character assassinations. What a guy.
