ITALY defender Marco Materazzi has denied provoking Zinedine Zidane's extraordinary World Cup final head-butt by calling the France captain a "dirty terrorist"."It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist," Materazzi said overnight.
| "I called him a 'dickhead.'" "That's the same thing!" "It is not. Italian has 194 different words for 'dickhead'!" |
| "Maybe I'm too much of a dumbass to know what 'terrorist' means, but I recognize a dickhead when I see one!" |
Contrary to popular belief, Zidane's outburst was not particularly out of the ordinary. He was sent off 14 times in his career at the club and international level. At the 1998 World Cup, he stomped on a Saudi Arabian opponent. Sitting out a two-match ban, he came back to score two goals against Brazil in the final. Five years ago with Juventus, he head-butted an opponent in a Champions League match against Hamburger SV after being tackled from behind.
Paris-based anti-racism group SOS Racism overnight quoted well-informed sources as saying Materazzi had apparently insulted Zidane with the use of the word "terrorist".
"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.
| Whoopdy doo. |
SOS Racism called for an inquiry and said FIFA, football's world governing body, had recently toughened sanctions against racism. "It's for this reason that SOS Racism asks in a determined fashion for FIFA to shed light on this altercation and that sanctions laid out in the official rules be applied should this be the case," SOS Racism said.
French television reported that Zidane would talk about the incident "in the coming days".
Zidane reportedly told his agent, Alain Migliaccio, that Materazzi had said something very serious", but the Real Madrid veteran wouldn't reveal any more deteails. "Zinedine didn't want to talk about it but he will talk about it in the next couple of days," Migliaccio told the BBC. "He is a man who normally lets things wash over him but on Sunday night something exploded inside him. He was very disappointed and sad. He didn't want it to end this way."
Aime Jacquet, who coached France to World Cup glory in 1998, said Zidane was "someone who reacts to things". Zidane grew up playing on concrete in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood of Marseille, where fouls and insults are met with instant retribution.
France striker Thierry Henry suggested perhaps that might have been a factor. "You can take the man out of the rough neighborhood, but you can't take the rough neighborhood out of the man," Henry, who hails from similarly impoverished roots, said overnight.
| Apparently you can't win the World Cup with him, either. |