No comparison can be made between the two when it comes to achieving club and country honours with Marco Materazzi winning four scudetto titles, one Champions league and a small matter of scoring at the world cup final and winning it in progress while highlight of Vinnie Jones’s career was when he set-up the winner for Billy the Limpet against prison guards in a movie scene, but when it comes to unorthodox playing style these are the names that make purists spew out whatever they’re drinking upon hearing them. They are two of the most disliked players among the fans in their respected countries and in Marco’s case throughout the world for his involvement in Zinedine Zidane’s red card at the world cup final. Widely berated as untalented brutes by their past opponents and pundits alike for most of their careers and simply branded as ‘rubbish’ and more known for their tough-tackling, elbow-leaning aerial challenges and off the field antics than footballing abilities.
They are also notorious for their petulant, dirty play and off the ball incidents away from the sights of officials with Jones once threatening to bite off Kenny Daglish’s ear and spit it into hole and squeezing Paul Gascoigne’s private parts in another match, while Materazzi infamously provoked Zidane into head-butting him by insulting the Frenchman’s sister during the aforementioned world cup final. In another very dark episode the Apulia native dished out a flying elbow right beside Juan Pablo Sorin’s eye socket causing a deep cut and severe bleeding after his team-mate’s (Sebastian Veron) request over a long dispute between the two Argentines.
Overall the two masters of the dark arts tallied up 36 red cards in-between with the Italian claiming 24 of those, 3 of which he racked-up during his short stint at Everton where couldn’t tackle a Sayers’ steak and kidney pie in his pointless spell at Goodison according to TheTimes’ Alex Murphy. The Inter Milan defender still has time to raise his tally however it is unlikely as he doesn’t see much action nowadays and solely been kept in the squad to wind-up opponents and make sure the Inter players’ lunch money isn’t stolen by Serie A bullies.
Perhaps one can argue that making it as a professional footballer didn’t really to their ‘to do list’ chart with Marco dreaming of becoming a concert pianist in his childhood until he fell and injured his wrist while Vinnie retired from professional football at relatively young age of 34 and instead used his on-field bad boy reputation to push for a career move as a movie thug.