Zlatan Ibrahimović Planned ‘Taekwondo’ Kick On Legendary Italian Defender For 4 Years

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For those who were unfamiliar with Zlatan Ibrahimovic prior to his arrival in Los Angeles, the man has been as brash, egotistical, and otherworldly dominant as he was during his Galaxy tenure for his entire career.

Playing for some of the world’s biggest clubs — such as Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC Milan, Paris Saint-Germain, and Manchester United — Ibrahimovic has performed at every stage of his career while earning plenty of admirers and making plenty of enemies along the way.

One of those enemies was legendary Italian defender Marco Materazzi, who Zlatan once famously annihilated with a kick during the 2010/11 Derby della Madonnina between Inter Milan and AC Milan.

While the self-described “taekwondo” kick happened almost a decade ago, Zlatan only recently revealed that details of that infamous moment, saying that he planned his revenge on Materazzi for four years, which is just the ultimate Petty Zlatan shit.

Speaking to GQ Magazine, Ibrahimovic revealed that he planned his violent revenge of the legendary Italian defender for four years:

“I was at Juve and we played against Inter. 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 the 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.” [via GQ]

Zlatan, man, love or hate him, you have to admit that there’s certainly not many quite like him.

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Eric is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t quite sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Follow him on Twitter @eric_ital for movie and soccer takes or contact him eric@brobible.com

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Eric Italiano is a NYC-based writer who spearheads BroBible's Pop Culture and Entertainment content. He covers topics such as Movies, TV, and Video Games, while interviewing actors, directors, and writers.