2006 Soccer Football World Cup in Germany

[gus]

Even with his crazy reaction, Zidane got voted the best player in the tournament. Guess the votes got in before the end of the final game......

I my book, Cannavaro was the best player in the world cup.

Gus

[cvillehog]

Even with his crazy reaction, Zidane got voted the best player in the tournament. Guess the votes got in before the end of the final game......

I my book, Cannavaro was the best player in the world cup.

Gus

According to the AP, most of the votes were cast before the end of the first half of the final. The incident was in the 110th minute.

[Sir_Monk]

I found this in the Guardian from the UK

http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup ... 51,00.html

An Italian lip-reader last night claimed to have deciphered the words Marco Materazzi said to Zinédine Zidane that provoked the French captain into butting him in the chest during Sunday's World Cup final, the great midfielder's final act before a red card ended his career in top-level football.
According to the BBC, Materazzi said, "I wish an ugly death to you and all your family"

[BossHog]

Ahhh... the class of the Italian footballers.

Very nice thing for Matzerazzi to say if it is true. Although I've heard reports that state something totally different... so like anything in the media these days... we don't really know exactly what was said unfortunately.

... and it doesn't matter one bit either.

I said stuff on the pitch that I wouldn't even repeat in Smack.... it's all part of the game. I WAS the guy who would drive somebody nuts through a game with incessant egging on. We'd often talk politely about the opposing player's mother's occupation... or his father's affinity for odd things... you know.... typical Smack talk. My own mother had to re-learn her love for me once I stepped on to a competitive playing field... her son was a heathen.

And it was all done to prompt a reaction like Zidane's. I'd step on the back of a guy's calves when the ref wasn't looking... run my burred aluminum cleat down his achilles tendon... willingly let a ball hit me in the face so that my head would snap back and smash the guy behind me in the face... stand on their ankle when getting up from a tackle...

Materazzi got exactly what he was after... a reaction. A big reaction.

... but it was a splendid head butt. Had Zidane hit him in the face, Materazzi might have died an ugly death himself. You just shouldn't nut somebody with that type of impetus... you really could kill a person.

Besides... if you only move your head forward about 3 inches in a quick jarring movement... you don't need the run up... and there's a lot less chance of someone seeing it. That way you can knock a guy out and then just stand there looking around with your arms in the air going, 'What happened?' and 'Wow... that guy broke some chicklets somehow.'

... or so I've heard.

I'd judge it as an ugly incident, but to be quite honest... Zidane walking down the tunnel to the dressing room with his head hung in shame, and the world cup trophy in the foreground... that ended up being the best image of the entire World Cup IMO.

[Deadskins]

I actually liked what Dr. Disease had to say about the incident. I'll post it here, so the SI website won't get the extra hits.

Picture this. Michael Strahan is tired of offensive linemen grabbing him, strangling him, chopping at his legs, talking never-ending trash, generally messing with him in fringe illegal methods and getting away with it. So he head-butts someone.

Will he get thrown out of the game? Probably not. He'll get a flag. But put him in the context of World Cup Football and the ridiculous grand opera tragedy it has become and he would not only get thrown out but a lifetime of greatness would be ruined -- at least for now.

Zinedine Zidane is not a flopper or a whiner or a moaner. I have never seen him pull one of those scenes from the last act of La Boheme, enacting his death tableau on the field after the merest brush of contact. I haven't seen him lying there at death's door while they go through with the most ridiculous of all dramas, the entry of the stretcher.

Imagine if the NFL were like that. Half a dozen stretchers called for during the course of the game, whereupon the nearly deceased leaps off it, shakes off the very fingers of the Evil One and trots back onto the field. Maybe Zidane was tired of all this, of this travesty, which rewards all the things that we were once taught were cowardly, but can be used to great advantage in this game.

So Zidane slammed a guy. He lost it. Writers all over the world are competing with themselves to heap scorn on France's greatest player. You know something? I don't blame him for getting sore. Almost every time I could find him on the screen, he had someone tugging at his shirt, tripping him or messing with him in some sneaky way.

The problem is he doesn't hit the canvas as the rest of those prima donnas do. So the ref must figure nothing is happening. Sure, he should have held off on the head butt, but to put the defeat of his team on his shoulders is a reach.

They say his magic foot would have provided the penalty kick France so desperately needed at the end. Did you see the one he scored in the first half? Guys like ABC announcer Marcelo Balboa were gushing about what a clever little shot it was, but hey, it hit the bar on top and landed three inches away from not being a goal. The one that France missed at the end was the same kick, only this one bounced just outside the line.

I'll tell you another thing. I just about had a bellyful of this Balboa guy. First he complains about all the flopping. Then, when France gets away with one to set up Zidane's penalty kick in the first half, he tells us that the guy "did a great job of selling it." Yeah, a great acting job. Accent on great.

It's like hearing Balboa congratulate a pickpocket for the deft way he lifted a guy's wallet. I love World Cup Soccer. I hated this game. I feel sorry for Zidane, who has a temper, just as I do. Or couldn't you tell?

[UK Skins Fan]

Dr Z? He clearly is just as ignorant about all forms of football. I can't be bothered to pick him up on every piece of crap in the article, but he's a moron.

[UK Skins Fan]

BossHog wrote:

I said stuff on the pitch that I wouldn't even repeat in Smack.... it's all part of the game. I WAS the guy who would drive somebody nuts through a game with incessant egging on. We'd often talk politely about the opposing player's mother's occupation... or his father's affinity for odd things... you know.... typical Smack talk. My own mother had to re-learn her love for me once I stepped on to a competitive playing field... her son was a heathen.

I disagree. Talking this kind of garbage is definitely not part of the game. It might have become part of the way the game is played, but it ain't part of the game.

If players want to abuse each other in this way, I don't see why it isn't cheating in exactly the same way as diving around like a pansy is. It's about trying to gain advantage by foul means.

[UK Skins Fan]

Even with his crazy reaction, Zidane got voted the best player in the tournament. Guess the votes got in before the end of the final game......

I my book, Cannavaro was the best player in the world cup.

Gus

According to the AP, most of the votes were cast before the end of the first half of the final. The incident was in the 110th minute.

That's true, but it is bizarre that Zidane was even in the running for the award. Cannavaro was head and shoulders above everybody else.

And if you want a really good laugh - the winner of the Most Entertaining Team award?

Portugal. Take a look at this site, for a really good laugh.
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060709/1/8r3w.html

[UK Skins Fan]

Of course, there's always a funny side to be found. Zidane's absurd actions reminded me of a fantastic incident from a charity football match over here a few months ago. It was a match between some English and some German "celebrities". One of the English celebrities was a guy named Boris Johnson, a wonderfully eccentric (I mean, he's the stereotypical English eccentric) member of parliament.

Now, bearing in mind that this guy gets to sit in the House of Commons, take a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVWLY2aEBfU&search=Boris%20Johnson

[BossHog]

I'm not condoning racial slurs etc... just saying that a lot of smack gets talked out there... and I've certainly seen supposed 'lip readers' give very different accounts of what the italian said to Zidane. Perhaps I should have made that clearer. And MOST of the things that I've seen reported, warranted NO action, let alone the action that transpired.

When you're on the pitch, you're governed by the rules. If I foul a guy hard or go over the ball, then I run the risk of being carded. If I shoot my mouth off to the ref... same thing...

But the verbal jarring amongst players is different to me. Calling a guy a Suzy, or implying that perhaps his manhood should be questioned after a a weak attempt at a tackle, is nothing but a little strategy and gamesmanship as far as I am concerned. If the guy lets you get under his skin and gets off his game... then it was well worth it. And a player of Zidane's caliber should be plenty used to the constant tongue lashings at this point in his career. I never had a problem shaking anybody's hand at the end of the game.. all is fair in love and war as they say... so to me that means that I don't say something to the point that would warrant the guy giving me a shot in the mouth AWAY from the field. Egg him on sure, verbally assault him, absolutely not.

REGARDLESS... at no point does it become acceptable to physically assault someone on the pitch. To me it doesn't matter what is said, your options for recourse on the field are very limited. You might go extra hard into a 50-50 ball... you might hope for a favorable knock in a collision... but under no circumstance do you react like Zidane did.

Personally... I don't think someone can SAY anything to warrant that type of reaction.

[UK Skins Fan]

For sure, Zidane was an idiot - absolutely no justification for his actions.

I draw the line somewhere between talking smack to the opponent, and bringing his family into it. Now, we don't know for certain what was said, but some of the reported abuse would certainly merit a thump on the nose if it happened in the street. But that just reinforces what I already thought - you're in your last ever football game, and you're a legend already. Why can't a professional of such standing wait until after the match, and go looking for the guy afterwards?

I might actually admire Zidane if he had waited until after the game, and taken his argument onto the Italian team bus.

[admin]

Can't disagree with that.

But he didn't... he just tarnished a long, brilliant career.

[gus]

And a player of Zidane's caliber should be plenty used to the constant tongue lashings at this point in his career.

EXACTLY THE POINT. What could the italian player had said, that had never been said to Zidane before, in like two dozen different languages....

Gus

[cvillehog]

Fun World Cup flash game.

You are Zidane. Your goal is to headbutt all the Italian players...

http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Spor ... dane.shtml