For example the India’s Master Blaster SACHIN TENDULKAR was insulted so many times by the opposition. But he NEVER lost his concentration and punishes him by hitting his bowling, and he scores more runs in his bowling. That is the GENTLEMAN punishment.

This is the one way of technique to get loose the temper of the main player and push him to do mistake.

I feel so sad for zidane… Oh…! What a match….!

MAYBE insults to ones mother/sister is part of life for Italians and not a big deal. But for many cultures women are too precious to be insulted wheather directly or in a football game.

After all many italians view racist comments in the Italian game as normal in football.

If I were Zizu I would have gladly given that guy at least 10 upper cuts for disrespecting my mother.

If it is acceptable and normal in Italy to insult mothers/sisters it does not mean that the whole world should accept that.

BRAVO MONSIUER ZIDANE !

sometime loosers should accept it….

the captain beahaved badly and the team lost…

and about the racist phrase > there is not proof of what has been said.
neither Zizou nor materazzi said anything about it, and all world discussing on a hypotetic phrase suggested by a tabloid specialized in gossip it is simply ridicoulus and has nonsense. And now from a game is startin a political-religion cruzade in order to defend i really don t know what.

i am italian and personally i never liked materazzi playing..too many fauls and no nice to see

but if anybody wanna be honest should also deny the fury and rage from zizou mother and his football mate…

it is only game !!!

It would be more than overkill, it would be a travesty (not that I’m worried it would actually happen, because it is a silly premise…..withdraw the cup from a team who legitimately won it, because of assumed (but impossible to prove) indiscretions by one of its’ players.)

Whatever the reasoning for it, I think it difficult to dispute that Zidane’s dismissal had a negligible effect on the outcome of the Final. France, for all their dominance of play from half-time onwards, rarely if ever actually looked like they would score, and by the time Zidane blew an O-ring, both teams pretty much seemed resigned to penalties.

Zidane would have been one of the penalty takers no doubt, but he may have been the last on the list of 5 (the spot often reserved for the best penalty taker), and may not even have had a chance to take one, plus Trezeguet certainly would have been one of the penalty takers also, even with Zidane on the field, and even if we assume Zidane would have scored….and as we all know it was Treze-gol himself that missed the key spot kick.

But let’s get back to the reasoning for the head-butt…..there seems to be a large sector of people willing to jump to ZZ’s defense, and assume that Materazzi must have offered up the “mother of all insults”, under the assumptions that a) Materazzi is a racist plonker, and b) Zidane is a god, unjustifiably victimized by hard nuts like Materazzi, and acting out of character when he pinned the nut.

Although I can’t dispute that Materazzi does indeed have a messy disciplinary record, let’s not forget that Mr. Zidane has an equally if not more sordid disciplinary record, including 20 career red cards, including one previous occasion in the 1998 World Cup where he got a straight red for stamping on a Saudi player. There aren’t many players in the world who can claim that now, eh, two straight reds in their World Cup career ?!?

Does this reinforce the point that Zidane gets unduly victimized, or does it reflect the possibility that Zidane has a shorter temper than he should have, and that he blew in the Final out of sheer frustration because the Italians were shutting them down.

Who knows….who actually cares ?? We will never know the real truth methinks, despite the best efforts of that BBC lip reader, because it will always be a question of “who do you believe ?”.

Materazzi has admitted to saying something, but who knows what Zidane said…there are always two sides to every story. I am amazed by the number of people willing to jump to conclusions about this, and state as fact something which is conjecture at best…..even the BBC, where a lot of the drivel about this seems to come from, have published two distinctly different accounts of what Materazzi was supposed to have said.

I have news for you….Italy are the legitimate World Champions…..get used to it, and get over it. Zidane was a supreme talent, one of the best players ever, but also one of the more volatile ones. He’s retired now, let’s move on.