Mo Salahs, not mohawks...

It wasn’t really a terrible misunderstanding – in fact, a Serbian hairdresser trimmed Mo Salah into the back of someone’s head as part of an intriguing collection

Let’s be honest: are you really a proper football fan if you’ve not gone to the effort of having your team’s superstar etched onto your scalp?

Well, now you can do just that – if you don’t mind flying to Serbia first. Stylist Mario Hvala is quickly making a name for himself in the city of Novi Sad thanks to a series of unusual haircuts, shaving staggeringly accurate images of famous people into his customers’ heads.

Serbian tennis royalty Novak Djokovic, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have been among the faces requested (not all on one scalp, obviously – that would be madness) but it appears footballers are pretty popular, too.

Hvala started off by shaving a massive Bayern Munich crest for one client, and he has since moved on to shots of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mo Salah and Diego Maradona. So how does he do it?

“There’s a lot of finesse in this work,” he tells FFT. “First you sketch the portrait, then do a definition of lines with a razor. Scissors are for making shadows. A hair trimmer can sometimes be used, too.”

The idea formed a decade ago. “I did my first hair tattoo in 2009,” says Hvala. “A customer wanted two lines trimmed into his hair, but I asked if he would like a tarantula instead. The guy went home with a tarantula on his head!” To be fair, when did you last say ‘no’ to a barber?

The process is time-consuming – each portrait takes eight to nine hours – but Hvala says his customers have a strong desire to get the perfect image, even if they have to shell out to get it. “It’s not cheap!” he says. “One portrait is around €500, but a lot of people are asking for them. One guy called from Los Angeles, not realising that I live in Serbia.”

As a huge football fan, Hvala loved to recreate the images of two Argentine legends. “My favourite portrait was the one of Messi but I loved Maradona too,” he explains. “The most challenging one so far has been Salah. I did that portrait because Egypt’s ambassador in Serbia asked me, but Mo’s hairstyle wasn’t the easiest thing to replicate.”

Customers usually keep the haircuts, though contours naturally start to fade after 10 to 15 days. Hvala has depicted controversial figures, including North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, so it’s no surprise to hear which opinion-splitting players he still wants to draw. “Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Neymar!” he says. “Of all the greatest stars, they’re the ones I still don’t have on my team.”

Well, why request Neymar when you could have Donald Trump freaking out the folk sat behind you in the cinema?