Report: Zidane apparently called "dirty terrorist" by Materazzi

[VolcanoJen]

It was expected that Materazzi said something exceptionally rude to Zizou, but this attack at his Algerian roots is probably surprising to everyone, and it certainly goes against football's recent anti-racism efforts.

This is just really sad.

Zidane apparently called 'dirty terrorist'

France captain Zinedine Zidane was apparently called a "dirty terrorist" by Marco Materazzi before he head-butted the Italy defender in yesterday's World Cup final, the anti-racism group SOS Racism, said today.

"According to several very well informed sources from the world of football, it would seem that the Italian player Marco Materazzi called Zinedine Zidane a 'dirty terrorist'," SOS Racism said in a statement. Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was shown a red card after the incident and Italy went on to win on penalties after the match was tied 1-1 following extra time.

[taterguy]

1. what's sad?

That Zidane fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book? Eliminate an opposing team's best player by provoking him. Geez, didn't he ever watch that old Gabe Kaplan movie Fast Break?

[VolcanoJen]

3. ROFL

[T_i_B]

2. I thought he'd accused Zidane of being French!

:P

[ps1074]

4. FIFA must act

If they're serious about their anti racism campaign. They should ban Materazzi for a year at least. If story is true of course...

[HEyHEY]

26. That's the thing. The SOS is reporting rumour

If Zidane comes out and says what happened, it's a different story.

[uppityperson]

5. wondered what was said, thanks

makes more sense than a mother comment like was speculated.

[blondeatlast]

6. I know mind games are accepted in sport now, but if we can't

play like decent adult humans on the playing field, how can we possibly expect to behave like decent adult humans when it comes to politics and world affairs?

Sometimes I think we are simply doomed.

I'm hoping this is just an unfounded rumor--but most rumors have a grain of truth to them.

[AngryAmish]

13. "the game of human chess" - Larry Zybisco

[Shell Beau]

7. It's all silly to me.

In a lot of sports, name calling is part of it. It is a stupid part of it, but it is to get the other person un-focused, etc. Racist comments are wrong. Period. But in no way is that an excuse for head butting someone.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

8. First of all,

the report comes from The Guardian (U.K. paper) and it has NOT been corroborated anywhere. This is not to excuse anything derogatory that may have been said by any player toward any opposing team's player, but the fact is that we do not know what provoked Zinedine Zidane.

Regardless of what anyone said to him, Zinedine is a professional player and I'm sure he's been told many derogatory things throughout his playing life. Regardless of what he may have been told, it does not excuse his action and poor judgment. He has exhibited this kind of behavior before. Considering that Zidane played in Italy many times and has played with most (if not all) of the Italian players, I find it hard to believe that someone would have been so callous as to call Zidane a 'terrorist.'

Disclosure: I am Italian.

[VolcanoJen]

9. FWIW, Materazzi denies the accusation

Nothing excuses Zidane's action on the pitch yesterday. Nothing. But I'm certain the whole world is curious as to what exactly set off the great Zizou.

Materazzi denies calling Zidane 'terrorist' - Reuters

Materazzi denied the accusations. "It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means," he said as the victorious Italy team returned to Rome on Monday.

[Shell Beau]

10. Hahaha!! I was rooting for Italy myself! But I agree with what

you say even if I weren't.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Then I'd have head butted him too.

Actually, I'd have punched him.

Soccer fights are fun to watch. They're trained not to touch anything with their hands, so they use everything but their hands.

[Shell Beau]

12. What does that solve? Possibly ruined it for the French!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Who said anything about solving something.

Sometimes suckers just need to be punched.

[taterguy]

14. I blame pharmaceuticals

I've never been tempted to assault someone based on something they said to me. I've also never been expected to doing anything physical after getting pain killers. You get pain killers because you're in pain. When I've taken them I've retreated to bed or the couch. I can see how they might cloud your judgment.

[MadHound]

15. Sorry, but even if true, that still doesn't exonerate Zidane

Zidane has a history of losing his cool. He's gotten been ejected from games fourteen times in his career, including another head butting incident, and once for stomping a Saudi Arabian player into the ground. Zizou has quite the little temper about him, and watching the game, I think it was starting to slip even before the incident with Materazzi.

A few minutes before the ill fated exchange, Zidane was denied a goal when his header was miraculously blocked away by Italian GK Buffon. Zidane all the sudden was yelling and screaming, not at anybody in particular, but seemingly out of pure frustration. I think that he really started to lose control right there, and Materrazi probably saw this and decided to see if he could get under the skin of France's best penalty kicker. He did, and sadly the entire French team had to pay the price for Zidane's lack of control.

There is no excuse for this kind of attack. Zidane should have just kept on jogging up the field, and let his play speak for itself. Instead, he lost control and cost his team the game.

[VolcanoJen]

16. I'm not so sure Zidane's exit cost Les Bleus the Cup.

If anything, the momentum changed when Thierry Henry left the match in overtime... he could barely walk off the pitch, he was so exhausted.

His replacement, David Trezeguet, who had spent most of the tournament on the bench, was the one who missed his penalty kick.

I think Zizou's action is inexcusable regardless of what was said to him, but I don't feel that he alone is to blame for Les Blues' loss.

And the press still awarded Zidane with The Golden Ball for Best Player in '06 World Cup, regardless.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. Yes, of course...everyone's gonna put it on Zidane now

Zidane this, Zidane that, blah blah blah...everyone soooooooooo scandalized by his headbutt, blah blah blah, cost the team the game...blah blah blah.

Did Zidane lose his cool? Yes. Has he had an anger problem in the past? Yes. The best description I've seen of him is "always on the line between thug and genius." And Shakespeare said it best: The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." So let it be with Zidane.

The scandalized repetitions of "there's no excuse for it" are getting a little shrill (they've been whiney already for hours), in any case. It's getting a bit old.

[VolcanoJen]

18. Interesting quote from Thierry Henry

The Zidane mystery - What set off France's captain during the key moment?

But lashing out is nothing new to Zidane, who grew up playing on concrete in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood of Marseille, where fouls and insults are met with instant retribution.

Perhaps he could never shake off that you-or-me mentality.

"You can take the man out of the rough neighborhood, but you can't take the rough neighborhood out of the man," striker Thierry Henry said Sunday.

I still love Zizou.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. I love him too

I'm a German soccer fan. My team was Germany. This puts me in a tough spot with my family, Italians. ;-)

That said, I understand exactly Henry's sentiment, having come up in a tough neighborhood myself. Yes, you're trained for years to throw hands at the drop of a hat, then everything vanishes and your supposed to be this upstanding suburbanite. But the body remembers. And yes, we pay for this, again and again. The body has its own cultural capital. This is not an "excuse" or a "justification." It is an explanation. These are different things, often mistaken by people whose bodies have different kinds of memories.

What I want to know is this: where is the continued outcry over Stackhouses flagrant foul on Shaq during the NBA finals (ostensibly as grand an arena for many folks). There was barely a peep. Ho hum, tough game, that's just how it goes. But Zidane, lawd, must be an arch-villian now, oui?

[MadHound]

21. Zidane was France's best penalty kicker

He has proven that time and again. If he had been in the game, I am certain that Trezeguet wouldn't have been kicking, Zidane would have. Granted, there is no guarantee that Zidane would have made his shot, but the odds were a lot higher than using Trezeguet coming off the bench:shrug:

And frankly I think it is cold comfort for Zidane to win an individual award while costing his team so much.

[VolcanoJen]

23. Fair Point

But it could be easily argued that Les Bleus wouldn't have made it to the Final at all, without Zidane.

Hence, the Golden Ball award. And I agree with you that it probably serves as cold comfort.

Still, Zizou will go down in history as one of the greats, right up there with Pele, Beckenbauer, and even his countryman, Michel Platini.

[jakefrep]

28. The referee should have grown a set and tossed Materazzi, too...

if what is being said here is true. I have great difficulty believing that a head-butt is completely unprovoked.

[MadHound]

30. Tossed for what?

For saying something? Please, quite frankly nobody but Materazzi and Zidane know what words were exchanged. And frankly there is no penalty for saying anything in soccer.

Zidane simply couldn't control himself when it mattered. In fact I would go further and say that if Zidane hadn't blown a gasket when his header was denied, I doubt that Materazzi would have said a thing. But instead, he saw that Zidane was on the edge, and decided to give him a little push. Oldest trick in the book.

Sorry, but this is all on Zidane. Sure, Materazzi said something to get his goat, but nobody but Zidane made the choice to stop, turn and head butt. That's all on Zidane.

[FredScuttle]

31. This actually raises a salient point

which is that the referee couldn't have possibly seen or heard the interaction between Materazzi and Zidane. The only reason Zidane's foul was caught at all was that Buffon yelled at a side official to look at the replay. I have a problem with Zidane getting a red card when the referee didn't see the foul, but I'm not sympathetic to him in any way...he went out like a thug and put a stain on what was a brilliant career.

[Oeditpus Rex]

22. 'Bastard 88 — called me a coon'

"Called you a what?"

"A coon."

"Okay, that's an old pro trick to get you thrown out of the ball game. Why don't you do the same thing to him?"

"What, call him a coon?"

"No. In training camp, the guys used to talk about his sister. Her name was Gladys. Use it!"



And, as most "M*A*S*H" fans know, Judson did indeed use it — and Davidson chased him all over the field and was thrown out of the game for it.

Psychological warfare can be very effective.

[FredScuttle]

24. Excellent point

I was thinking of that scene in MASH....Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, lol

[Oeditpus Rex]

25. Yup

And that was the Raiders' Ben Davidson who chased Judson around the field.

[FredScuttle]

27. MASH Trivia

1)Which Hall of Fame quarterback was featured in the football sequence smoking what appears to be a joint?

2)Can you name Ben Davidson's next movie after MASH?

Hint: Think Ivory Soap

[Oeditpus Rex]

29. Joe Kapp

Who, incidentally, went to the same junior high school as I. He was like 16 years earlier, though.

Jack Concannon was also in it. I think he was the player who passed the joint to Kapp, or took it from him.

Ivory Soap...?? :shrug:

[FredScuttle]

33. Joe Kapp! I forgot he was in it!

I was thinking of Johnny U. But Joe Kapp works for me as well. There were a bunch of NFLers in that sequence...Fran Tarkenton also appears (briefly), as does Buck Buchanan.

The Ivory Soap hint is this - the female star of Ben Davidson's next movie was a former model who once was featured on an Ivory Snow soap box.

[Oeditpus Rex]

35. Holy Green Door!

You're kidding!

Well, his nickname was "Big" Ben Davidson. :rofl:

[taterguy]

32. 2) Behind the Green Door

I guess most people who saw it weren't paying attention to the male cast members

[FredScuttle]

34. Ding! You are correct, sir

Well played.

[taterguy]

36. How proud should I be that I knew the answer? :)