History of dreadlocks in football

For a footballer, the pitch is a place like any other to show his personality. Perhaps it is no longer the most important, now replaced by social media, but it still remains the best option for circulating his image throughout the world without working very hard. This is the reason why, taking care of your look remains an integral part of preparing for a match: some footballers do not pay too much attention to appearances while there are some footballers who really care, with particular attention to their hair. In this sense, football is not exactly the sport with which we immediately associate the image of dreadlocks despite history has offered us several examples, and each one tells us a different story.

Ruud Gullit - The pioneer

We need to start from here, from the afro hair that drove Italy crazy in the late 1980s. Ruud Gullit has been the first footballer who tried to be cool by rocking dreadlocks on the pitch. An exotic note within a panorama made up of pre-established aesthetic canons with very rare exceptions. Gullit destroyed this monotony with his thick mane which prompted Gianni Brera, the most important Italian sports journalist back then, to rename him Simba.

The triumphs of Netherlands and Arrigo Sacchi's Milan made Gullit's image famous throughout the world. And from that moment on, from the end of the 80s, dreadlocks stopped being an exception on football pitches. The influence on the following generations has been impressive, so much so that in the Ajax team that won the Champions League in 1995 alone, at least three players wore dreadlocks and one of them, Edgar Davids, over the years has shaped his image around this hairstyle.

Henrik Larsson - The coolest

Is it possible that the coolest player ever to rock dreadlocks on a football pitch came from Närlunda, a Swedish district of 1500 inhabitants? Yes, because this is where Henrik Larsson's rise began. He’s Swedish, but with Cape Verdean origins inherited from his father which gave him somatic features far from our idea of ​​the Scandinavian profile.

Henrik Larsson has been and still is the epitome of the dreadlocked footballer. First of all because his arrival on the world football scene coincided with the return of dreadlocks to the musical scene thanks to Zack de la Rocha, singer of Rage Against The Machine, or Lenny Kravitz. The 1994 World Cup in the USA made him popular. The white band with which he kept his dreadlocks tidy, the Celtic shirts created by Umbro and the tongue shown after every goal turned him into a legend.

Kyle Beckerman - The Rastafaian

Until now we have made it all about style but in fact the spread of dreadlocks in the modern era is linked to religious reasons and more precisely to Bob Marley's adherence to Rastafarianism. Reggae music was a vehicle for Marley's faith and his songs have left a lasting impact on generations of kids, including Kyle Beckerman.

Beckerman became popular during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this is the stage on which his dreadlocks became famous throughout the world. Reggae-inspired dreadlocks, as confirmed by Beckerman himself in the bio of his old blog, which gave him a wilder image than any other footballer.

Trent Alexander Arnold - The come back

At one point it seemed that dreadlocks had completely disappeared from football pitches, as if they had become the starting point for articles on the strangest hairstyles in the history of the sport. The man who managed to restore popularity and dignity to this hairstyle has been Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Breaking away from convention, the Liverpool defender offered a new solution - a helmet of thick dreadlocks that enveloped the back of his neck, in place of his typical long hair. Some kind of point of contact between the tradition of this hairstyle and its evolution into a trendy element.

Rafa Leao - The 2.0 version

Let's go back to our starting point. The desire to feel cool, to go beyond football and express one's personality through the hairstyle. The face of this current is undoubtedly Rafael Leao and his fine dreadlocks that sway with him every time he sets off at full speed in the open. The Milan striker is not the only example.

Edoardo Camavinga perfectly matches his dreads to Real Madrid's iconic camiseta blanca, the same happens at Barcelona with Jules Koundé and at Manchester City with Nathan Aké. In Serie A there are Zambo Anguissa and Moise Kean. In Bundesliga there is Kevin Mbabu. All modern reinterpretations of one of the oldest hairstyles in human history that give us a moral: dreadlocks are once again a thing in football. Whether it's for fashion or a tribute to one's origins, it does not matter.