Footballers put plenty of time into becoming the best players they can possibly be.
But sometimes it’s easy to forget even the biggest stars have lives outside of their careers.
Indeed, some footballers have unusual, unexpected hobbies and talents, from music to other sports.
From Depay's rapping career to Akanji's mega brain, today we count down players with hidden talents outside of football.
1. Memphis Depay - Rapper
‘Fall Back’, ‘5 Milli’ and ‘No Love’ are just some of the songs that Barcelona forward Memphis Depay has released.
"Young king getting paid, she will fall in love when you put diamonds in her face,” he raps on one of his songs.
Only Memphis can be such a good footballer and rapper at the same time!
2. Daniel Agger - Tattoo artist
Daniel Agger has a deep love for tattoos.
He has ‘YNWA’ inked on the knuckles of his right hand and his back is covered in body art.
He’s also a professional tattoo artist. Nifty with the ball at his feet and the pen in his hand.
3. Petr Cech - Drummer
Petr Cech’s personal YouTube page is filled with videos of him playing the drums.
He’s covered songs by Foo Fighters, Coldplay, The Script and Rihanna, and even released his own song with Queen drummer Roger Taylor, called ‘That’s Football’.
4. Alexis Sanchez - Piano
Manchester United’s video announcement of Alexis Sanchez’s arrival, in which the Chilean played the piano, seemed like a bit of a joke. But Sanchez can genuinely tinkle the ivories.
United fans — and now Inter supporters since he joined on loan — are still ‘right here waiting’ for him to rediscover his Arsenal form. Sorry about that one.
5. Ivan Perisic - Beach volleyball
Croatian winger Ivan Perisic can say he’s represented his country in two sports.
He made his beach volleyball debut for Croatia in 2017 at the Porec Major.
How’s that for talent?
6. Gareth Bale - Golf
Now we can't exactly call this a hidden talent since everyone already knows Bale's enthusiasm for Golf.
The man just entered the Golf Tournament The European Tour, let's see how he will swing, shall we?
7. Alisson Becker - Singer and guitarist
When he signed for Liverpool in 2018, Alisson Becker performed a cover of Oasis' 'Don't Look Back in Anger' during his initiation.
He also collaborated with Scouse musician Jamie Webster to perform a cover of 'Allez, Allez, Allez' on guitar.
8. Les Ferdinand - Helicopter pilot
When Les Ferdinand joined Newcastle United in 1995, he wanted to find a hobby.
He learned to ride a motorbike, play the saxophone and to cook.
But he found his true passion when he started taking helicopter lessons.
The former Tottenham Hotspur striker earned his full licence after passing seven exams.
“It’s a real release,” Ferdinand told FourFourTwo in 2005.
“When you’re up there, you can completely disappear for a couple of hours – nobody bothers you and you don’t bother anyone else.”
9. Hal Robson-Kanu - Cryptocurrency entrepreneur
When he’s not bagging goals, Hal Robson-Kanu can be found studying blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.
Robson-Kanu shared his thoughts that blockchain “is the future” in a fascinating interview with the Independent in 2018.
“Back in 2011, 2012, I didn’t really entertain it,” Robson-Kanu said. “Because I looked at the mainstream narrative on it. It was ‘illicit dealings, drugs, unsafe’. So I bypassed it for a good two years.
“After which point I came back to it, because of the [Bitcoin] price increase, from $10 to $15 up to towards $40. I was intrigued as to how this technology, or its digital asset, could have had such a significant growth.
“So I looked into it further, I read the Bitcoin White Paper, began interacting with the blockchain community. And I very quickly realised that this is the future.”
10. Andrey Arshavin - Fashion designer
Former Arsenal winger Andrey Arshavin has designed women’s clothes.
Indeed, a number of the pieces he designed while studying at the State University of Technology and Design in St Petersburg were held in the institute’s museum.
He even completed a thesis on designing a suit that could be worn both casually and for sport.
Football managers would be queuing up for those.
11.Zlatan Ibrahimovic-Taekwondo Fighting
Perhaps not so secret this one, but world-famous Swedish striker ‘Ibra’ has shown his Taekwondo ability through a variety of specialist kicks and flicks throughout his career.
From his roundhouse flying kick and supreme athleticism to inventive specialist moves, Zlatan has it all, and it takes no genius to figure out that the towering figure is a household name in yet another sport—Taekwondo.
At just age 17, Zlatan had already reached the dizzy heights of black belt status back in his home town of Malmo, Sweden, and was reportedly a much better martial artist than he was a footballer. But rather than dedicating himself to one sport over the other, the striker decided to combine the two, and probably the moment he will be most known for is his bicycle kick from near the halfway line against England back in 2012 to embarrass the opposition.
12.Socrates-Doctor
The former professional Brazilian midfielder who captained his country at the 1983 World Cup is well remembered in world football.
But what most people do not know about the star is that he actually dedicated a lot of his life to becoming a Doctor.
He was a physician, and held a Bachelor’s degree in medicine, which he obtained whilst playing professional football. When he retired he began to practice medicine in Sao Paulo. Sócrates was also heavily involved with politics, and liked to think of himself as a spokesperson for the ‘poor’ of Brazil. His public hatred against Military regimes and dictatorship led him to have a legacy and status well beyond the football pitch.
13.Juan Mata - Piano
The Spaniard to the surprise of many is actually very talented with his hands as well as his feet, and the Pianist performed for the rest of the squad at the team hotel when he played a sequence of "The Flea Waltz."
Mata has also been videoed playing the opening theme tune to "The Simpsons," and teammates and fans alike can now see the midfielders ability to orchestrate both on the pitch, and in his relaxation time. Mata learned English in just one year after joining Manchester United, and has once more proven his intellectual ability with this form of art.
14. Manuel Akanji – Mathmetician
Not only is Manuel Akanji doing the business on the pitch for high-flying Dortmund. He’s also ridiculously good at maths, as he proved with an appearance on a Swiss TV show.
The Switzerland international worked out maths problems before the presenter, who was tooled with a calculator, could even begin to process the numbers.