Footballers get criticized for everything. Miss a sitter? You’re done. New haircut? Meme’d into the ground. But tattoos are different. A bad game fades. A questionable tattoo? That’s there forever, and fans never let it go.

These five tattoos keep coming up. Not because they’re offensive or anything—just because every time you see them, you think: what was the plan here?

Kenedy’s full-scalp Jesus portrait

Kenedy went for it. Full Jesus portrait, right on his shaved head.

Look, the ambition is there. But full-scalp portraits are brutal. There’s no room for error, and this one’s got proportion issues that create this intense, almost unsettling stare. It went viral instantly and followed him everywhere—Chelsea, Newcastle, multiple loans. Tattoo artists still bring this up as the textbook example of “don’t try this without someone who really knows what they’re doing.”

Marko Arnautović’s chaotic torso

Arnautović’s chest and back are all over the place. Stars here, script there, some architectural stuff, a few faces—none of it talks to each other. It’s like he started three different tattoos and just… kept going.

This built up over years, which probably explains why it feels so scattered. But for a guy with his energy and presence, the randomness is what you notice first.

Mauro Icardi’s oversized lion (and everything else)

That chest lion. Huge head, cubs around it, the whole thing weirdly scaled. It became a joke at Inter, and honestly, it’s hard to unsee once you notice it.

Then he added this massive back piece—religious scenes, mythology, heavy shading everywhere. Technically it’s solid work. But the chest and the back feel like they came from two completely different people with completely different ideas. That’s what keeps it in the conversation.

Uroš Vitas’s portrait attempt

This one hurts to talk about. Vitas got his wife’s face tattooed on his torso, which should be sweet.

It’s not. The proportions are wrong, the face doesn’t look like her, and putting a portrait on a torso never works the way you think it will. This became one of the most reposted “worst football tattoo” images online. Not because he was disrespecting anyone—the intent was beautiful. The execution just… wasn’t even close.

Nicolás Otamendi’s TV character collage

Otamendi covered his entire back with TV characters. Thomas Shelby, Walter White, Ragnar, some Game of Thrones people. The whole gang.

Each portrait? Actually pretty good. The concept? Completely baffling. Why are they all together? What’s the connection? Is there a theme? Nobody knows. It’s one of those things where the technical skill is clearly there, but the vision is just… a lot of questions.