Ever since the legendary hefty goalkeeper William “Fatty” Foulke prompted the first chants of “Who ate all the pies?” around the turn of the 20th century, little has amused undoubtedly svelte football supporters more than goading players who are carrying a bit of extra timber. Irony is low on their list of priorities when it comes to the childish and admittedly hilarious matter of holding Frank Lampard’s early puppy-fat years against him for the rest of his career, which is why the reaction when Gonzalo Higuaín appeared in Juventus’s friendly win over West Ham United looking … how to put this diplomatically … looking as if he had spent the past few weeks injecting custard and foie gras into his veins was no surprise.
Fine, that is overly harsh. Yet it was in keeping with the response to the striker’s debut appearance on a baking hot Sunday afternoon at the London Stadium, with plenty of folk sounding as if nothing would satisfy them more than to chase a topless Higuaín round a dressing room while brandishing a wet towel, watching him squeal and jiggle in terror. Tickle him and watch sweets tumble from his armpits! Shake him and marvel at the chocolate falling from his pockets!
Nowhere was this body shaming more pronounced than in Naples, where Napoli fans, livid with the striker for joining Juve, greeted the sight of the £75m man looking like a 300lb Homer Simpson minus the muumuu with unbridled joy, draping a Higuaín shirt over a pot-bellied mannequin in the club shop. Meanwhile an app lampooning Gonzalo the Gluttonous has been released in Argentina, making big play out of his unfortunate habit of squandering big chances in finals.
Terrific fun, of course, but there is a fair chunk of exaggeration taking place here. Hell hath no fury like a football fan scorned and there is a chance people are making themselves feel better by allowing their imagination to run wild, building up the image and idea of plus-size Higuaín as Argentina’s answer to Big Jon Parkin until he is nothing more than a pork chop on legs, the plot of Shallow Hal in reverse.
Seeing a supposedly elite athlete looking out of shape on his first appearance since helping Argentina reach the Copa América final is an opportunity to bring him down to our level, where we flick through photo albums with horror, reassuring ourselves the camera adds 10lb or that the light was bad or that we never look good on a Tuesday morning. A Google search for “fat celebrities” brings up 20,200,000 results in 0.76 seconds. Mocking the famous is a cherished part of our culture.
Even then, it is no more than a fleeting feeling of superiority. There is a temptation to portray Higuaín’s plight as a peculiarly South American thing, to stereotype an entire continent as a hive of excessive party animals. The original Ronaldo has a lot to answer for in this regard. On the eve of the Olympics a picture emerged of Rafael Nadal alongside Ronaldo, who has certainly enjoyed his retirement.
The best Brazilian player since Pelé scored the goals that won the 2002 World Cup, forming a formidable attacking trident with Rivaldo and Ronaldinho, whose weight also fluctuated while he was playing in Europe. He was labelled “fat and lazy” by the Spanish media when relations turned sour at Barcelona in 2007 and Max Allegri, Higuaín’s manager at Juventus, dropped the Brazilian at Milan. Eventually Ronaldinho joined Flamengo in 2011. “He wanted to make a life choice by going to Brazil,” Allegri said, choosing his words carefully.
Ronaldo and Ronaldinho are rightly remembered and celebrated more for their extraordinary skills than their expanding waistlines but lax conditioning can backfire, as Chelsea’s Diego Costa discovered when he began pre-season below his physical peak last summer. A rotund charmer’s appeal stretches only so far. There was disquiet in Brazil when Walter, a jobbing striker whose body mass index classified him as obese, teetered on the edge of their World Cup squad in 2014.
As the game grows more physically challenging, clubs are demanding greater discipline from their players. Pep Guardiola has stamped his mark at Manchester City by outlawing flabbiness, the most revolutionary move from a foreign manager in England since Arsène Wenger invented water in 1996. Samir Nasri is set to become the first casualty of Pep’s fat camp.
Nasri’s fate brings up the possibility that this is not a South American trait. After all, who can forget Real Madrid fining the former Italy striker Antonio Cassano for every gram he was overweight? Or Wayne Rooney’s response to an abusive tweet in 2013: “haha fat. U have more fat on ur face than i have on my body fatso. Go the gym. Fat boy.”
The previous Argentinian striker at Juventus, Carlos Tevez, denied allegations he was overweight when he arrived in Turin in 2013 before dominating Serie A for two seasons and, for all the crowing over Higuaín, Napoli fans should be warned that Luis Suárez was accused of being too heavy when he made his first appearance for Barcelona after his ban for biting. Luis Enrique, his manager, was unmoved. “He is a naturally stocky player,” he said. “If you want, we’ll give him liposuction but I don’t think he needs it.” Suárez’s amused team-mates nicknamed him El Gordo – The Fat One – but the Uruguayan finished the season by firing Barça to the treble.
What those teasing Higuaín forget is that it will not take him long to shed the pounds. Here is a player who scored 36 goals for Napoli last season, which explains the source of their anger. They will not be laughing if his signing brings Juve their first Champions League since 1996.
• This article was amended on 15 August 2016. The legendary hefty goalkeeper was called William “Fatty” Foulke, not Foulkes as an earlier version said.
