The 16 best soccer haircuts of all time

2. Bobby Charlton

We shouldn’t be too harsh on Bobby Charlton. It was a very different time when he opted to fool the world into thinking he had a full head of hair by sporting a comb-over.

Except that he didn’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, did he? No, he simply pulled the strands of hair across his shiny bald pate. Yet he doesn’t regret it.

Charlton told Four Four Two magazine, “I started going bald at 17. Everyone who came out of the mines wore caps because they went bald, but I’ve never lost any sleep over it.”

In the same interview, the World Cup winner revealed that he never received any abuse on the pitch for his hair. Again, that must be a product of the times; can you imagine a professional soccer player having a comb-over these days? If you’ve read this far, you almost certainly can.

After all, just three years ago the BBC announced the comb-over is “a hairstyle that refuses to lie down.” The sub heading on that article also claims it “is making an unlikely return,” though that seems to be based on Christian Bale’s hair in American Hustle, rather than on any, you know, evidence. Still, the article also has instructions on how to give yourself a comb-over, just in case you can’t figure out how such a feat of engineering comes to be.

Bobby Charlton, then: the runner-up in our countdown. A legendary player for all the right reasons, with a legendary hairstyle for countless wrong ones.