Zlatan Ibrahimovic hospitalised Materazzi in act of revenge during 2010 Milan derby

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marco Materazzi don’t exactly see eye to eye.

While the famously volatile pair might have shared the Inter Milan dressing room together once upon a time, it’s fair to say that their relationship grew sour by the time that Ibrahimovic donned the black and red stripes of AC Milan.

Now, Materazzi is no stranger to painful incidents on a football pitch because he is, after all, perhaps most famous for having been head-butted by Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final.

However, remarkably, the Italian defender might possibly argue that it was actually the fiery culmination of his beef with Ibrahimovic that actually hurt a lot more than his clash with ‘Zizou’.

That’s because Materazzi was sent to hospital courtesy of a kung-fu kick and flying elbow from Ibrahimovic during the first Milan derby of the 2010/11 season in Serie A. Yeah, seriously.

As confirmed by Goal at the time, Materazzi – nicknamed ‘Matrix’ – was hospitalised for what can only be described as a taekwondo move for which Ibrahimovic was staggeringly only awarded a yellow card.

And although Ibrahimovic denied that it was a deliberate foul at the time, he later revealed that the brutal tackle was indeed an act of revenge that had been years upon years in the making.

The Daily Mail quotes Ibrahimovic as explaining to GQ Magazine in 2019 what was really going on: “Materazzi entered a challenge like an assassin and hurt me. He was a tough football player, that’s OK.

“But there’s two ways to be tough, one of them is aiming to hurt you. Even [Paolo] Maldini was tough, but with a different objective.

“It was Juventus-Inter in 2006 and after the foul I had to leave the pitch for a moment and [coach Fabio] Capello said: ‘I’ll substitute you’. I