Zlatan: 'Sent Materazzi to hospital'

By Football Italia staff

Zlatan Ibrahimovic says he "waited four years” to get his “revenge” by sending ex-Inter defender Marco Materazzi to hospital during a Milan derby.

After being treated roughly by Materazzi whilst at Juventus, Zlatan never forgot about the incident and revealed how got his own back in an interview with GQ.

“I was at Juve and we played against Inter,” he began.

“Materazzi entered a challenge like an assassin and hurt me. He was a tough football player, that’s fair enough.

“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 said, ‘no, I’ll go on.’

“I wanted to return to the pitch to get my revenge on Matrix. If someone does that to me, I won’t forget about it.

“But after two minutes, I’m in too much pain to go on. I can’t play. Then I go to Inter, Barcelona, Milan…

“In the first game, the 2010-11 derby, they were all against me. Okay, this motivates me. But, if you don’t have any control, it’s not good.

“You’ll lose your head and do something stupid. I got a penalty, and who fouled me? Materazzi. 1-0 Milan.

“In the second half, Matrix is coming at me and I hit him with a Taekwondo move, I sent him to hospital.

“[Dejan] Stankovic asked me; ‘Why did you do that?’ And I replied to him: ‘I have been waiting for this moment for four years. That’s why.’

“Then I left. What goes around comes around. Milan won and it was a good spell for us because the old club was great.”

The Swedish superstar will announce his next club later this month, with a return to the Rossoneri heavily mooted.

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