MATERAZZI ADMITS INSULTING ZIDANE

MILAN July 11, 2006 (NYT) - ''I did insult him, it's true,'' Materazzi said in Tuesday's Gazzetta dello Sport. ... The 32-year-old Inter Milan player did not elaborate exactly on what he said to Zidane.

''It was one of those insults you're told tens of times and that always fly around the pitch,'' he said.

Three broad camps seem to have huddled up since last Sunday's coup de boule.

First, there are the blind excusers. This is a diverse crew that includes forgiving fans like Jack, the racial police, and critics and maligners of Italy. This group puts forth a variety of argument exculpating M. Zidane as a racial victim or a filial pietist or a hard put machista.

SOS Racisme knee-jerked a press release (which, alas, cannot be bookmarked, click the link and navigate: actualités > communiqués de presse) demanding justice for what it is pretty sure might be a racial slur:

ZINEDINE ZIDANE TRAITÉ DE « SALE TERRORISTE » ?
SOS RACISME DEMANDE UNE ENQUÊTE À LA FIFA.

PARIS 10 juillet 2006 - Selon plusieurs sources très bien informées dans le monde du football, il semblerait que le joueur italien Marco Materazzi ait traité Zinedine Zidane de «sale terroriste ». Si cette hypothèse se confirmait, le joueur italien serait donc l’auteur d’un propos raciste, attitude malheureusement courante dans le football et dénoncée par notre association depuis plusieurs années.

As we will see, these well informed sources were poorly informed. And as our friends at ¡No Pasarán! point out, clean or dirty, "terrorists" as of yet are not a race.

ZIDANE'S MOTHER WANTS MATERAZZI CASTRATED

July 12, 2006 (SNA) - The mother of Zinedine Zidane has praised her son for his disgraceful World Cup headbutt on Marco Materazzi amid claims the Italian branded her a "terrorist whore".

Talking in a fury to British daily Mirror, Malika Zidane warned the Italian defender she wants his "b*lls chopped off" for igniting the ugly spat.

Well, Mother Zidane is not helping the cause. And this legal stunt seems rather pointless:

FRENCH LAWYER WANTS WORLD CUP FINAL ANNULLED

July 12, 2006 (SNA) - Mehana Mouhou said he would ask a French court to question the fourth match official, Luis Medina Cantalejo, who pointed out to the head referee Zidane's head-butt of Italian defender Marco Materazzi.

The court session is to "determine if the fourth official took his decision using illegal means, which using video evidence is," Mouhou said.

Next there are the unforgiving, who wish ever greater punishments and opprobrium to be heaped on M. Zidane. This is a mismatched crew of the faintingly shocked and aggrieved and those with an insatiate animosity toward France. This crew deplores the violence of sport, the ugliness of bad manners -- or they simply deplore France. The word "thug" is used freely to describe M. Zidane and there is astonishment -- horror -- that such things happen in competitive sport where big men physically contest for advantage.

WALK OF SHAME [Sports page link]
ZIZOU SEES RED
July 2006 (Telegraph)

FRANCE SALUTES 'STUPID GENIUS'

PARIS July 11, 2006 (Fox Sports) - The France team returned home overnight in no mood to party. The scheduled parade down the famed Champs Elysees boulevard here was cancelled on the wishes of coach Raymond Domenech, after his team lost on penalties in Monday's Berlin final.

...Le Figaro daily writing in a merciless editorial that Zidane's "final and odious headbutt" had tarnished the final match of a "magical" player.

"We were left speechless by such stupidity," the paper wrote – although it also paid tribute to Zidane "for all the kicks of pure beauty he has given us over more than 100 matches with Les Bleus."

"The hardest thing is not to try to understand why Les Bleus lost a World Cup final match that was within reach," the sports daily L'Equipe wrote, but "to explain to tens of millions of children around the world how you allowed yourself to headbutt Marco Materazzi."

And this seems rather overdone:

ZIDANE MAY LOSE GOLDEN BALL AWARD

July 12, 2006 (SNA) - FIFA President Sepp Blatter says Zinedine Zidane could be stripped of his Golden Ball award for the best player at the World Cup due to violent conduct.

Finally there is the smallest of the three camps, those who have not hired lip readers, but have patiently waited for M. Zidane to explain himself, which he has.

ZIDANE SAYS INSULTS TO MOTHER, SISTER CAUSED HEAD BUTT

PARIS July 12, 2006 (ESPN) - An apology, but no regrets and no detailed explanation on what set him off. That's where French soccer star Zinedine Zidane left things Wednesday during widely broadcast television interviews that attempted to decipher his ugly head-butting of an Italian opponent during the World Cup final.

"There was a serious provocation," Zidane said. "My act is not forgivable. But they must also punish the true guilty party, and the guilty party is the one who provokes."

"I tell myself that if things happened this way, it's because somewhere up there it was decided that way," the 34-year-old midfielder said in an interview on TF1 television. "And I don't regret anything that happened, I accept it."

MONDIAL: ZIDANE A VOULU VENGER L'HONNEUR DE SA MÈRE
[MONDIAL: ZIDANE WISHED TO AVENGE THE HONOR OF HIS MOTHER]

PARIS 12 juillet 2006 (Libération) - "Il a alors dit des mots très durs, des mots qui me touchaient au plus profond de moi. C'était très grave et très personnel. Cela concernait ma mère et ma soeur.

"Au début, j'ai essayé de ne pas l'écouter et de partir mais il a continué à répéter ça deux ou trois fois et les choses se sont passées très vite."

"Je suis conscient que cela se passait à 10 minutes de la fin de ma carrière dans une finale de la Coupe du monde et qu'il ne fallait pas le faire. Mais je ne suis qu'un homme et rien d'autre."

["He [scil., Materazzi] said some very harsh words, words that affected me deeply. It was very serious and very personal. This concerned my mother and my sister."

"At first, I tried not to listen and turn away but he continued to repeat this two or three times and then things happened very quickly."

"I am aware that this occurred 10 minutes from the end of my career in a final of the World cup and that it did not have to be done. But I am only a man and nothing else."]

And that is as much as we will ever know. Neither party will ever repeat the insult, the one because it is damning and the other because it is shaming.

Zizou did what he did. He has owned up to it. He has no regrets, hence no remorse, and has not sought forgiveness from Sr. Materazzi nor leniency in the consequences of his actions. He will take more punishment than a red card over this, but it is hard to imagine that he hadn't calculated the long stakes before he clocked Sr. Materazzi.

Keep in mind that Zizou is guilty of bad sportsmanship not homicide. Do we wish soccer were a more sedate, more gentlemenly sport like, say, bridge? No. Do we wish the head butt hadn't happened? Yes. But it has and that's that. To the excusers we say "understandable" is not "excusable". To the hand-wringers, we would point out that the world has not visibly darkened. To the foes of France, there are more reprehensible targets.

It seems to us that if M. Zidane can retire and live with this, then the rest of us can manage getting on too.

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