Piling on Zidane

More than anything, I wish I wrote for an English tabloid. I don't think I could get that story in the paper, especially not with that headline.

This is quickly growing into one of my favorite sports stories of all time. All of the principles can make anything up whenever they want to. It happened on such a big stage that every journalist in the world wants a quote for his or her paper to blow up into something huge. There have been lip-readers called in, as well. In the end, it enables the world's columnists to, in print and electronically, to become hysterically self-righteous.

The general consensus seems to be coalescing around the idea that Marco Materazzi, the head-buttee, called Zidane something like "a son of a terrorist whore." This is very interesting because FIFA is trying to stamp out racism, and this sort of accusation could actually bring some negative consequences down on the Italian player. So first Materazzi said that he didn't know what the word "terrorist," meant. That makes him either 1. a stickler for his postmodernism or 2. stupid. He's changed his tune a little bit, according to the Associated Press.

"I didn't say anything to him about racism, religion or politics," Materazzi told the Gazzetta dello Sport. "I didn't talk about his mother, either. I lost my mother when I was 15, and even now I still get emotional talking about her."

Zidane, meanwhile, is not apologizing.

Wednesday, he stressed he felt no regret "because that would mean (Materazzi) was right to say all that."

"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."

Zidane is in the wrong here, in that no indignity is actually worth getting dismissed during the World Cup final. I'm also curious as to the European attitude toward trash talking. Because it seems obvious to me that if you can get the other team's best player to take himself out of the game, you absolutely do it.