Professional football players perform their work in teams. Even though they work together in matches, they are rivals in the internal competition for limited places in the team of 11 players that a manager selects from a squad comprising sometimes more than 30 professionals. One player sums up the ruthlessness of rivalries in the following way: ‘At the end of the day, you know, everyone is in it for themselves. And quite often players would shit on each other if it came to it’ (Roderick, 2006: 251).