One player’s Premier League stint might not be his greatest achievement as he claimed to have made love to a model 37 times a day, before their romping supposedly earned him a three-month ban
There’s going at it like rabbits and then there’s one former Premier League star and his stunning Playboy model ex-girlfriend.
You’d be forgiven for forgetting former striker Marco Borriello’s injury-hit spell at West Ham in the 2013/14 season. Even Hammers fans might have to think quite hard to remember it – the Italian stallion arrived on loan from Roma, played twice without scoring, got injured, then went home. However, his life away from football – and East London – has been nothing short of a circus.
He made his AC Milan debut shortly after his 20th birthday in 2002, but Borriello would wait another four seasons before scoring his first goal for the club. He must have thought he was ready to kick on, only to be handed a drugs ban when he tested positive for banned substances. And that all seemingly related to his heartthrob status off the pitch, when he dated busty beauty Belen Rodriguez.
JOIN US ON FB! Get all the best sports news and much more on our Facebook page
The fiery pair had met in 2004 at a nightclub, when Belen joked she “was a poster girl and didn’t know he was a footballer, he came to talk to me and it was love at first sight”. They became an ‘it couple’ of Italian football, but then came the finding of steroid hormone prednisolone in his system in late 2006.
Athletes have come up with plenty of creative excuses after a positive drugs test, but ‘penis cream’ isn’t usually one of them. Borriello clearly wasn’t like every other player, though.
His partner was certainly out of the ordinary too, seeing as the Argentine-Italian actress was one of the most well-known sex symbols in Italy, having posed for Playboy and a variety of nude calendars.
Belen said she passed on a sexually transmitted infection and – more crucially – recommended him a treatment which contributed to the banned substance issue.
“I advised him to use the ointment but forgot it contained cortisone…Our sex session proved fatal,” she claimed.
The excuse didn’t work – and Borriello was banned for the rest of the season – missing out on Milan’s Champions League final victory over Liverpool in 2007, when they gained revenge for the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’ in 2005.
Borriello would later claim Rodriguez “was given bad advice and exaggerated during the interview,” but sex-related explanations were easy to believe as far as the Italian was concerned.
This was a man who once said: “Sex is very important because I am passionate…I’m lucky to know that if I want it, I can have it at any time.” There were reports in gossip pages at the time that he also bragged about having sex 37 times a day. That’s some going.
And if Borriello was randy, well Belen doubled that. Sadly their romance didn’t last, but she has never stopped making headlines.
As was seen earlier this month when, while wearing a very low-cut top, the now TV host slipped off one of her high heels mid-show and allowed one of her co-stars to take a drink off her foot. As you do.
The slightly confused, but seemingly excited, man got down on one knee as instructed. And after putting Belen’s toes in his mouth, she poured water down her leg and all over his suit.
Belen is also open about her activities in the bedroom; she recently claimed she’s thrown cacti at former lovers in the bedroom. Spiky.
The star-crossed lovers were ultimately never meant for each other, and Borriello told Corriere della Sera in 2023: “It was a bitter, immature love story between two young people.
“If we meet in Milan, I hug her; she’s a sunny and fun girl. In any case, it was the most important relationship of my life.”