Monday, July 10, 2006

What exactly did he say?

Just to keep everyone up to date on the spiralling theories about "what Marco did/said to Zizou to make him blow his rag".

1) The "dislocated shoulder" theory. Just prior to the head-butt, Materazzi had Zidane in a clinch. he may have been tugging on the shoulder that Zidane badly injured just before full-time...kind of like how the Germans kept hitting Pele's busted arm in Escape to Victory.

2) The "nipple tweaking" theory. Arianna Huffington, of all people, is putting out the idea that during said clinch, Materazzi did not grab the shoulder but instead gave ZZ's nipple a twist. Which is pretty irritating and childish, but probably not head-butt material.

3) The "terrorist" theory. SOS Racisme is claiming that "well-known figures in the world of football" have told them that Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist". This has led to a not-entirely-convincing denial from Materazzi himself (Note to Marco: claiming you don't know what the word "terrorist" means is more than slightly disingenuous), but also to a request from a centre-left Margherita MP to have the national minister of sport investigate Materazzi's conduct. And people wonder why some accuse the left of being unpatriotic....

4) The "Your sister's a whore" theory. Agence-France Press is reporting that Brazilian TV network Globo has had lip readers check the replay, and have concluded that Materazzi called ZZ's sister a whore. This is clearly a calumny...some quick background checks would suggest that not only is his sister not a whore, she is married to a Canadian. Arguably worse, in some people's eyes, I suppose, but there you go...

Zidane has apparently promised that he will be explaining his actions sometime later this week. In the meantime, we can all just meditate on the benefits of keeping one's rag in the face of provocation.

***

Update! Do check out the new Zidane-Materazzi video game, available here.

1 Comments:

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