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July 10, 2006
Butt of joke
French football fans will have to decide for themselves if it was worth it, but if the London Times' "expert lipreader, Jessica Rees" is correct, Zinédine Zidane's head butt heard 'round the world is starting to make some sense:
After an exhaustive study of the match video, and with the help of an Italian translator, Rees claimed that Materazzi called Zidane “the son of a terrorist whore” before adding “so just f*** off” for good measure, supporting the natural assumption that the Frenchman must have been grievously insulted.
There's almost certainly more to the story, and it seems unlikely we'll ever definitively know just what happened, but Materazzi's denial is rather odd:
“It is absolutely not true,” Materazzi said. “I did not call him a terrorist. I’m ignorant. I don’t even know what the word means. The whole world saw what happened on live TV.”
No one said you called him a terrorist, Marco. And as for not knowing what "terrorist" means… well that's just weird.
(Cross-posted to the Shotgun.)
Posted by Chris Selley at July 10, 2006 11:34 PM
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Comments
Why are sports players such assholes?
Posted by: Jason at July 11, 2006 09:06 AM
I thought it was kinda cool actually.
I know it's a contrarian view but I can respect losing your temper like that. He did it face to face, it caused no permanent harm and he took his penalty without whining. It seems to me a lot better than the usual cleats-in-the-calf retribution.
Posted by: KevinG at July 11, 2006 05:56 PM
It certainly prevented me from finally falling asleep.
Posted by: Sean Pelette at July 11, 2006 06:50 PM
Sorry, I meant Materazzi was an asshole - I really respect Zidane for going at him.
Posted by: Jason at July 11, 2006 09:51 PM