Marco Materazzi Biography
Summary
"Marco Materazzi", Cavaliere Ufficiale OMRI (born 19 August 1973), is an Italian World Cup-winning footballer who currently plays as a centre back for Serie A club Internazionale.
At the beginning of his career, Materazzi played with various Italian teams in Serie B and Serie C, and with Premier League side Everton. He spent two periods with Perugia (1995–98 and 1999–2001) and signed for his current club, Inter, in 2001 for ?10 million. He is renowned as a prolific goal-scorer for a defender, breaking the Serie A record for most goals scored by a defender in a season in the 2000–01 season. With Inter he has won a number of major honours including three Serie A titles, the Coppa Italia twice, and the Supercoppa Italiana three times.
He made his international debut in 2001 and won his first major trophy with Italy in 2006, as part of the World Cup team. Materazzi played in the final of the competition and became the centre of much controversy when he was headbutted by Zinedine Zidane mid-match after having insulted him. The altercation, and resulting red card for Zidane, was the source of much discussion and remains a prominent moment in World Cup history.
Early life
Marco Materazzi was born in Lecce, where his father Giuseppe was a player for Lecce. Giuseppe was also a former football coach and manager of teams such as Pisa, Lazio, Sporting CP and Tianjin Teda. Marco was a Lazio fan during his father's stint as Lazio manager in the late 1980s.
Club career
He began his footballing career with the Messina Peloro youth team from 1990 to 1991. He spent his early career in the lower divisions of Italian football, with amateur side Tor di Quinto (1991–92), Serie C2 team Marsala (1993–94), and Serie C1 Trapani (1994–95), where he narrowly missed a historic promotion to Serie B after losing a promotion playoff to Gualdo.
Serie B squad Perugia Calcio signed Materazzi for the first time in 1995, but spent a part of the 1996–97 season in Serie C with Carpi, before coming back to Perugia. He then spent 1998–99 with Everton, where he was sent off four times in just 27 games, and scored twice against Middlesbrough in the league and Huddersfield in the League Cup. He then once again returned to Perugia. He scored 12 goals in the 2000–01 season, breaking Daniel Passarella's Serie A record of most goals by a defender in one season. He was then signed by Inter for ?10 million. Materazzi finished the 2006–07 season as the top scoring defender of Serie A with 10 goals. Many of his goals come from penalties. He signed a contract extension in 2006 that will keep him with Inter until 2010. Materazzi made his 150th appearance for Inter in a 2–0 win over Atalanta on 6 April 2008. 2007/2008 season would not be one of Marcos personal best after being sent off wrongfully by the referee after gamesmanship by Fernando Torres during the Liverpool v Inter Champions League tie,Inter would go on to get knocked out by Liverpool. He was then dropped from La Nazionale never to return after he took the brunt of the blame for a calamitous performance by Andrea Barzagli alongside Marco in Italys opening Euro 2008 fixture. Since the 2007/08 season Marcos injury problems have exacerbated.
On 1 July 2009, Inter officially announced that Materazzi had signed a new contract which last until June 2012.
International career
Materazzi started the 2006 FIFA World Cup as a reserve player, but after Alessandro Nesta suffered an injury in the group match against Czech Republic, he was brought back into the starting lineup. He was sent off with a red card in the round of 16 match against Australia and was suspended for Italy's quarterfinal match against Ukraine.
In the World Cup final against France, he conceded a penalty but later tied the match 1–1 with a header. He also scored Italy's second penalty in the shootout after the match remained tied after extra time. During the extra-time period, Materazzi was headbutted in the chest by Zinédine Zidane, who was then sent off. Zidane had accused him of insulting his sister and mother, but during a press conference following the event, Materazzi said that after he had grabbed Zidane's jersey, Zidane offered it to him sarcastically. Materazzi then replied, "preferisco quella puttana di tua sorella" (I prefer the whore that is your sister), which resulted in the headbutt. He later claimed he did not know that Zidane even had a sister. Three British tabloid newspapers, "The Daily Star", "The Daily Mail" and "The Sun", alleged that Materazzi had made comments of a racist nature to Zidane. Materazzi took legal action against them and the allegations were later withdrawn and all three newspapers paid substantial damages.
Materazzi started the first match of Italy's appearance in EURO 2008, a 3-0 loss to the Netherlands. He was replaced in the 54th minute with his team trailing 2-0 and did not play again in the tournament.
Honours
;Internazionale
Serie A: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
Coppa Italia: 2005, 2006
Supercoppa Italiana: 2005, 2006, 2008
Trofeo Tim: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007
Birra Moretti Cup: 2001, 2002, 2007
Pirelli Cup: 2001
;Italy National Football Team
FIFA World Cup: 2006
Personal
Serie A Defender of the Year: 2007
External links
(Profile and stats) from Football Database
(Information on the incident between Materazzi and Zidane)
(Popular song with video about the incident between Materazzi and Zidane)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Marco Materazzi.
