Goodbye Mr. Zidane
Hola quesolitos! How is this wonderful Friday for you? I hope it is treating you with the wonder and grace that it is treating me. Oh yeah, by the way, did I mention that Italy won the world cup? Well they did. Congrats to them. But today, now having had time to think about all that transpired, I need to comment on the most important play of the game--the headbutt.
Okay so there is some newsreport and conflicting stories about Zinadine Zidane getting called a terrorist by the Italian player and defending his honor. But all of this is really trifling compared to the heart of the matter.
Think about it...it is his last international match...his final shot at the biggest and most prestigious trophy in his sport...his memory and his legacy being capped by this night...this is the final international words of the one affectionately called Zizu--the maestro.
And some italian defender starts the play by giving him a little purple nurple action after which they begin a little laughing banter. Then the Italian guy says something objectionable. Now at this point, for most of us it would not matter what he said, we would have wanted our cooler heads to prevail so that we could finish the match. But not Zidane.
He decides that it doesn't matter if his team loses a man for the rest of the match, the remark crossed the line, and whether or not his memory is ruined, this guy deserves an extra heartbeat.
And actually, it is this that in some odd way I respect. Sure, it shows a lack of teamsmanship--but are there times when a person simply can't let something go unpunished? Sure, it is a lack of sportsmanship--but both ways. I will tell you what he didn't lack: CONVICTION! And no one will ever question his heart. He cares. Period. He cares. You don't act right...you get smack'd right. You step outta line, and it don't even matter if it's the biggest game of my life, I'll gut you like cattle. I'll give you an arythmia. Who's next? And not a single Philistine would come forward to challenge the shepherd for they trembled with fear.
I was also impressed that he was so angry, he forsook his fists and went straight to the good old fashioned headbutt. Kudos to you right there, Zizu.
It is moments like this that fascinate and inspire me.
And just cuz I luv y'all so much...the video links to some pretty good games...we will consider it the link of the week.
God save the Cheese.
posted by adam at 9:43 AM
4 Comments:
Yeah,
I'm basically with you on this one. I happened to see it live -- which is remarkable because I wasn't at all into the WC or soccer in general. But right after it happened and the announcers started making a big deal of it being "a classless act", I told my wife that the announcers were a bunch of idiots. And the reasons for that judgment were: 1) they had no idea what had been said immediately prior or had occurred between the two players over the course of the match; and (more importantly) 2)the French guy was sending a message, not trying to hurt the guy. He used his head to knock the Italian guy on his butt. If he wanted to hurt him, he could have done a lot of other things (the most obvious of which would have been to head butt the guy in the face -- now that would have hurt the Italian guy, maybe broke his nose, and still wouldn't have hurt Zidane a bit). This was not at all in my book a classless act of trying to hurt an opponent -- such as we saw with Marcus Vick stomping Elvis Dumerville's knee. Regardless, he probably deserved a yellow card for the act -- which my guess is that he knew would likely be the cost of his statement. But he shouldn't have been thrown out -- especially since it seems clear the ref's didn't even see it. It was kind of fishy to me that they didn't call anything till it was replayed on the jumbotron a minute or so later. Plus, with the Italian guy, it was just one more instance of dramatic soccer flopping. The guy starts rolling around like he's dying. And then, once the ref makes the call, well what do you know -- he's just fine.
July 14, 2006 4:03 PM
i strongly dissagree.
July 18, 2006 9:33 PM
is this how you are going to raise your little tyke, to just headbutt someone because they say something objectionable. just think what this world would be like if that is how everyone reacted to unlikable comments. i shudder to think.
July 18, 2006 9:37 PM
i won't raise him to think that soccer is more important than his mother.
July 19, 2006 12:39 PM
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