What was Zidane thinking?
France lost the final match of the World Cup to Italy, on a 5-3 penalty kick shootout after a 1-1 tie through regular time and two 15-minute overtime periods. Penalty shootouts can be a bit random, so either team could have won, and it was a fun game to watch since I’m not partial to either side.
More interesting to me than the actual outcome of the game is Zinedine Zidane, captain of the French side, who headbutted Marco Materazzi from the Italian team, which got him red carded and thrown out of the game during the second overtime. Not in the middle of play action, mind you, but while walking back down field between plays, so it was completely pointless in terms of advancing the game for his side.
Zidane isn’t exactly a hotheaded youth, having already stated his intention to retire from soccer after the World Cup. Up to the headbutting, the US commentators had been comparing him to Beckenbauer and other elder statesmen of the sport, which might have been overdone. But after leading the French side to the finals, heroically coming back in late in the game after a minor injury, and standing on the verge of ending his career on a high note, perhaps leading off the game-ending penalty kicks, what on earth was he thinking?
More from SI.com, video clip at YouTube
Update Wed 07-12-2006 13:55PDT - Anil Dash presents the Zidane World Cup Headbutt Animation Festival.
Tags: world cup, soccer, football, sport, culture, france, management
July 10th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
The rumor is that Materazzi called Zidane, whos heritage is Algerian, “a dirty terrorist.” Materazzi denys it. Given the circumstances, I don’t think there is anything that Materazzi could have said that would justify Zidane’s actions.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
What is still perplexing for me is that Zidane apologised to children and others who watched it but goes on to say that he does not regret it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/france/5174758.stm