Threats, Luis Suarez fuming and six-a-side scraps – Liverpool’s biggest bust-ups

Two former Liverpool team-mates were at each other’s throats last weekend when Fernando Torres and Alvaro Arbeloa met on the touchline.

Torres is manager of Atletico Madrid’s Under-19s side, with Arbeloa in the same position at Real Madrid, when the two players were involved in aggressive scenes after an incident during a match between the two teams at the weekend.

But they aren’t the first Liverpool team-mates to fall out, and they won’t be the last.

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Here are some of the biggest bust-ups between Liverpool team-mates in years gone by:

Fernando Torres vs Alvaro Arbeloa

Fernando Torres and Alvaro Arbeloa were Liverpool teammates during the second half of Rafael Benitez’s reign as Liverpool manager in the late 2000s. They also played in the same Spain side that won the World Cup and two European Championships between 2008 and 2012.

However, with both of them just beginning their managerial careers on either side of one of the most heated rivalries in their native country, those facts are forgotten. During a match between Arbeloa’s Real Madrid under-19s and Torres’ Atletico side, tempers flared on the touchline after a goal from Los Blancos prompted wild celebrations and the former right-back approached Torres only to be shoved away and threatened by his old acquaintance. As reported by Relevo, Torres is understood to have said ‘I’ll blow your head off’, to which Arbeloa responded, ‘Start whenever you want.’ The former centre-forward was given a red card while the Real boss got off with just a yellow.

Jamie Carragher vs Alvaro Arbeloa

The incident with Torres is not the first time Arbeloa has been on the receiving end of physical abuse from a teammate. Speaking in 2020, Jamie Carragher reflected on an incident 11 years previously where he admitted he was close to punching the Spaniard. The day before his side’s penultimate match of the season away at West Brom, Manchester United had officially won the league the previous day, meaning the Reds had just fallen short of their first league championship in 19 years and that the Red Devils had now drawn level with their then record of 18 top flight titles.

With team morale understandably deflated, Carragher was keen to rally his teammates, insisting they still had plenty to fight for in their final two matches of the campaign, including trying to earn Pepe Reina a fourth consecutive Golden Glove award. So when he felt Arbeloa wasn’t pulling his weight in order to achieve that goal, Carragher reacted angrily and shoves were exchanged before Xabi Alonso stepped in to separate his two teammates. Carragher, who made 737 appearances for Liverpool, said ‘it was just frustration, nothing more’ and said it was just as a result of his passion to win. The Reds went on to win 2-0 at West Brom but Reina was pipped to the Golden Glove award by United’s Edwin van der Sar.

John Arne Riise vs Craig Bellamy

Almost undoubtedly one of the most infamous incidents of Liverpool teammates turning on each other was in 2007 between John Arne Riise and Craig Bellamy. The Norwegian had already spent five years at Anfield by this time while the forward had just joined that summer for his first of two spells at the club.

Before a Champions League match away at Barcelona, the team went on a five-day trip to the Algarve, where the Welshman tried to convince Riise to get up and sing karaoke and the full-back refused angrily. Bellamy claims before this incident, his teammate had done several other things to wind him up, including lying to get out of a Christmas do and cheating at golf. Perhaps in an attempt at irony, a drunken Bellamy claims he went into Riise’s room that night and smacked the Norwegian across the legs with a golf club, saying he’d hit him across the head with it if he ever spoke to him like that again, before leaving.

However, Riise said the forward had attempted to seriously injure him by going for his shins and then hitting him in the hip and then the thigh. In the subsequent match, the pair each managed to get their names on the scoresheet in a 2-1 victory for the Reds, with Bellamy celebrating his goal by imitating taking a golf swing, which Riise later claimed he found to be very disrespectful. Despite this fractious relationship threatening team morale, Liverpool still managed to reach the Champions League final that season, where they were beaten 2-1 by AC Milan.

Luis Suarez vs Jordan Henderson

Jordan Henderson has established himself as one of the key figures at Liverpool in recent times, serving as captain for the entirety of Jurgen Klopp’s helm at the club and leading them to the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup. However, he didn’t hit the ground running when he first signed for the club in summer 2011, something which drew the ire of Liverpool’s star player at the time, Luis Suarez. Henderson revealed in a 2019 podcast with Jamie Carragher that he was ‘ready to kill’ the Uruguayan, claiming that on several occasions Suarez would throw his arms in the air when Henderson made a mistake, as if to suggest the midfielder wasn’t good enough to be there.

But the Liverpool captain claims they had a good relationship after this rocky patch and remain good friends to this day. The pair were seen embracing after a Champions League match between the Reds and Suarez’s Atletico Madrid side at Anfield in November 2021.

Bruce Grobbelaar vs Steve McManaman

Tensions are hardly ever higher than on derby day and a young Steve McManaman learned this the hard way during a match at Goodison Park in September 1993. In the 27^th minute with the score still at 0-0, Everton’s Andy Hinchcliffe sent in a poor corner from the right which McManaman, stationed at the near post, was able to clear away. However, his clearance was equally as poor and found only Mark Ward on the edge of the area and he was able to find the back of the net with a fierce shot through a forest of players.

Goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar got right in his teammate’s face, expressing his fury at McManaman’s clearance and the winger argued back, leading Grobbelaar to point in his face and then push it. McManaman did the same before walking away. In an interview in 2004, the midfielder insisted that was where the incident ended. Everton went on to win the game 2-0.

Jason McAteer vs Michael Owen

We’ve had clashes before important Champions League fixtures and after conceding in a Merseyside Derby, but professional footballers are so competitive that even in a six-a-side tournament, tempers can flare between old friends. Michael Owen and Jason McAteer were Liverpool teammates for two years between 1997 and 1999 but this didn’t stop them getting into an altercation during a Star Sixes match between England and Republic of Ireland in January 2019.

In an off-the-ball incident, McAteer appeared to pull the forward back, leading Owen to trip him up. Both got back to their feet and squared up to each other, with Owen lightly pushing his former teammate before McAteer appeared to kick him in the back which he later described as ‘like a loving push.’ The referee didn’t see it that way, dismissing the midfielder from the pitch and cautioning Owen.

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