Monday, July 10, 2006

Viva Italia!

First off, congrats to the Italians for their World Cup victory in the penalty kick stages.

The game, excellent as it was, will be marred by the Zidane headbutt, which was one of the most shocking things I've seen in all my days watching sports. What was said between Zidane and Matterazi before the headbutt? Well, we might never know exactly, but according to Fox Sports, we have a pretty good idea:

FOXSports.com's Jamie Trecker reports that French players told French media members that Materazzi used a racial slur which prompted the headbutt.

Combine the racial slurs with the placement of Matterazi's left hand a little before the headbutt (just watch the video), and we can at least see why Zidane may have done it. Which of course doesn't justify it. No matter the circumstances, you can't headbutt a guy at that stage of the match in the World Cup final... awful, awful play. The one positive from the whole ordeal is this little video:



One final note... I don't know soccer that well, but I know it well enough to say that Marcel Balboa is awful. I mean, I'm not a big fan of Dave O'Brien, but he was passable and he's a soccer n00b from what I understand. But Balboa was terrible. Why couldn't thry have put someone like Tommy Smith in the booth? But I digress.

And so ends the World Cup, which, despite the low goal scoring, was really exciting and fun to watch, even for a guy that is normally a soccer-hate like me. Until the next World Cup, congrats to he World Cup Champions from Italy!

1 comment:

The Big Picture said...

great, great video!