ISL: Marco Materazzi will join Team Chennai in Bangalore tomorrow

Marco Materazzi to join Team Chennai tomorrow

New Delhi, Sep 19 (IANS) Italian footballer and World Cup winner Marco Materazzi will be arriving in Bangalore Saturday to join the Chennai franchise for the inaugural Indian Super League (ISL) that will be held Oct 12-Dec 20.

The former Inter Milan defender will be the player-manager of Chennai team that is co-owned by the Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan.

The 41-year-old Materazzi, who was head butted by legendary Zinedine Zidane during the infamous 2006 World Cup final, will be landing in the evening and will join the team Sunday for the training session.

"Materazzi will be arriving here Saturday and on Sunday he will have the first training session. The whole team is based here and later we would be shifting our base to Chennai," a team source told IANS.

The Chennai franchise will be run in association with Play on Skills, which has a technical collaboration with Italian Serie A giants Inter Milan. Chennai franchise replaced Bangalore after its owners Sun Group pulled out at the last moment

Materazzi's former national team-mate Alessandro Del Piero, former France and Juventus striker David Trezeguet, his compatriot Robert Pirès, the Spaniards Joan Capdevila and Luis García and the former Newcastle United striker Michael Chopra will also be seen in action with different franchises in the ISL.