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MILAN - According to a report by Datasport, il meglio dello sport - Notizie, risultati e classifiche., Marco Materazzi is not the dirty player he is so often made out to be. In an article dated 5 June, Datasport reports that the World and Italian champion committed just 48 fouls during the Serie A season, and was shown 13 yellow cards.
Inter and Italy defender Materazzi is often depicted as a fouling player, but look at the Datasport database, and a rather different picture emerges. He committed much fewer fouls than his team-mates Ibrahimovic (74), Stankovic (62) and Dacourt (57), and fewer still than rival players Toni (82), Mutu (72) and Gattuso (73).
Of his 13 bookings in the 2006/07 Serie A season, three came in strange circumstances: following the incident with Bruno Giordano in Inter v Messina, after being headbutted by Delvecchio in Sampdoria v Inter, and after his goal celebrations in AC Milan v Inter.
Yet the 33-year-old defender's fouls almost never go unnoticed by referees. During Inter's Scudetto-winning campaign he picked up 13 yellow cards and one red, an almost record average of 1 booking every 4 fouls. To quote a few examples, AC Milan's Gennaro Gattuso was booked ten times - once every 7 fouls, while Parma midfielder Vincenzo Grella picked up a yellow every 10 fouls. Atalanta midfielder Giulio Migliaccio, top of the list in 2006/07 with 100 fouls committed, was booked just four times.
The most fouling teams were those relegated or who avoided the drop in the final stages of the season. Excluding free kicks given for handballs, Ascoli are top with 810 fouls, followed by Siena (790), Parma (779) and Torino (772). The 'best behaved' team in 2006/07 was Cagliari with just 597 fouls committed.
Palermo's Brazilian midfielder Simplicio was the most sent-off player, with 4 red cards. Sampdoria's Falcone and Udinese's Muntari share second place with three dismissals each. The most yellow-carded players were Udinese's Pinzi and Ascoli's Mineri (14 each), followed by Fiorentina forward Mutu and Materazzi (13). Doni (Atalanta), Passoni (Livorno), Parisi (Messina), Guana (Palermo), Lanzaro and Tedesco (Reggina), Delvecchio (Sampdoria) and Ardito (Palermo) each picked up 12 yellows.
1 booking every 4 fouls is alot...and although it shows that other people foul more, the fact that he is getting the yellow card for them shows that his are worse. maybe he is punished because of his reputation?
I love the guy, and lets be honest, its not like he attacks his own teammates from behind, tackles them to the ground and then turns their faces into hamburger.. or puts cigarettes out on 15 year old's faces.. or anything like that right?
Materazzi gets a bad rap, at least compared to some. I've heard commentators call bad fouls "clumsy tackling" a million times yet when Materazzi is involved its called "intent to injure".
Ok, Materazzi can be dirty. But his reputation precedes him, he hasn't had nearly as many red cards as people would imagine (less than players like Zidane) and he's a very good player, good tackler and also technically very good too.
Materazzi not as dirty as made to be? 
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