Manchester United lost 1-0 to visitors Everton in their 12th game of the 2025-26 Premier League season, but there was another incident that made headlines alongside the obvious narrative about the defeat that sunk the Red Devils to a new low. In the 13th minute, with the home side in ascendancy, Everton’s midfielder Idrissa Gueye recovered the ball and passed into space, hoping one of his teammates, presumably Michael Keane, would receive it. However, the centre-back remained in his place and the loose ball was latched onto by United captain Bruno Fernandes, who fired an open chance at goal. The shot went wide, but errors like this, which otherwise is resolved in apologetic gestures or harmless talking, actually turned into a heated argument between two Everton players.
First it was verbal, then it became a physical altercation with Keane pushing Gueye back and the Senegalese responding with a slap to the England defender’s face. The Toffee’s keeper Jordan Pickford intervened to separate the two, but by then, referee Tony Harrington had brandished a red card, leading an angry and frustrated Gueye to be escorted away. Going down to 10 men did not affect Everton, though, as Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall scored a fantastic goal not long after and held on to it impressively, sealing a famous win at Old Trafford. However, the crazy red card made us ponder such incidents in the sport where a player has been dismissed not for a fight with his opponent but against his teammate. In fact, Gueye became only the fourth Premier League player to be sent off in this manner. While fighting your own teammate is a rare occurrence on a football pitch, it leaves everyone scratching their heads at the weird scene that plays out.
We look at some of the weirdest red cards given in football, where emotions run so high that a player launches into a fight with his teammate
Marcao headbuts Akturkoglu
This incident is fairly recent, as it occurred in 2021 in the Turkish league and it made a dull game eventful. It was Galatasaray’s opening game of the season and they sealed a comfortable 2-0 win over newly promoted side Giresunspor, but it could have gone wrong for an incident that happened on the hour mark. Brazilian defender Marcao and Turkey international Akturkoglu got into a verbal disagreement, with the latter pointing his finger to his lips as if telling the former to shut up. Marcao got offended by that and he responded by running from his own half and then headbutting Akturkoglu before throwing punches at the winger. Teammates restrained the now Sevilla player, but he was duly sent off after the incident was immediately referred to the VAR. Both players reconciled later, but the incident highlighted how a simple gesture could ignite
things even between the same parties.
Lehmann’s stupidity
The Ruhr derby is often a heated affair between Dortmund and Schalke, but a weird spectacle occurred when the two met in the 2002-03 season. Schalke went two goals up, but then got a player sent off, which allowed Dortmund to come back into the game and make it 2-2. However, the real drama happened when Schalke found the net again, leading to Dortmund’s keeper Jens Lehmann, not new to controversies, but taking it to the next level here, storming up to his striker Marcio Amoroso upfield and reacting badly, even trying to strangle him. The official was not having any of it as he showed a straight card for the shot-stopper’s antics as he became the first Bundesliga goalkeeper to be sent off four times in his career. To top it off, the goal that enraged Lehmann so much was chalked out for offside and the game ended in a draw, leaving all of this stuff avoidable. The player was heavily fined by the club for his utter stupidity on the pitch, hurting his teammate for a goal that did not count.
Fuller slaps his captain
The Premier League witnessed something similar to Idrissa Gueye’s red card for slapping his captain, Michael Keane, in the 2008-09 season. Just four days from the New Year, Stoke City travelled to West Ham for a league game that everyone thought would add to the festivity. It looked so when Abdoulaye Faye scored within just five minutes to the sheer delight of the visiting fans. However, the Hammers brought themselves level early in the second half through Carlton Cole, but then something happened which became headline news rather than the game itself. Instead of restarting the game after the goal, Ricardo Fuller went up to his captain, Andy Griffin and slapped him. The referee saw everything and immediately sent off Fuller for violent conduct. The Jamaican later revealed that he was upset about Griffin misclearing the ball, which led to the equaliser and that his actions, although not justified, were due to the Stoke City captain allegedly being rude and disrespectful to him for saying to boot the ball out. It was not a happy ending for Stoke in the game or to the year as they went on to lose 2-1.
Not so friendly
Sometimes, friendly matches remain friendly only in naṁe, owing to some games flaring up as if it is a do-or-die competitive outing, leading to incidents of players getting sent off for violent conduct. However, nobody could foresee an event where two players from the same team would get into a brawl, even though they should be friends on the pitch in football terms. It happened in a friendly game played between two Scottish teams, Hearts and Raith Rovers, in 1994, when a normal outing became anything but normal when the former’s players Craig Levein and Graeme Hogg got into a fist fight. It left both of them badly injured, with Hogg flat out, receiving his red card while on a stretcher, but not before he had broken Levein’s nose, who also got sent off. Hogg was hit with a 10-match ban, while Levein was suspended for 12, alongside getting stripped of the club’s captaincy, with the pair even put on the transfer list, but they ṁanaged to light up a friendly regardless in the most strange way possible.
Bowyer Dyer brawl
However, the most famous teammate fight happened in the Premier League clash between Newcastle United and Aston Villa in 2005. The Magpies were already beaten, trailing 3-0 with a player down, but the afternoon was about to get a lot worse. With just eight minutes left on the clock, Lee Bowyer accused his teammate Kieron Dyer of not passing the ball to him during an attack. Bowyer responded by calling Dyer a ‘sh*t’ and a huge brawl broke out between the two. There would have been more punches thrown had Villa’s Gareth Barry not stepped at the right moment to separate the two. Both were handed red cards to the disgust of Alan Shearer, who thought it was a harsh decision, to leave Newcastle finishing the game with eight players. Yet it did not calm them down as the two continued to clash against each other, heading down the tunnel and were later made to apologise for their action by manager Graeme Souness in a press conference.
