The Headbutt

The Fifa World Cup Of 2006, held in Germany, was one of the most successful sporting events ever. It brought in record crowds, showcased amazing talent, and, for a brief month, seemed to unite the world. The stage was set for the final match-up between the Azzuri (Italy) and Les Bleus (France), and it promised to be a climactic finish as the World Cup 2006 would go down as one of the best of all time.

Instead, in my opinion, it was a disaster. Picture this. The score is 1-1 in the 108th minute, the game appears to be heading for a penalty shoot-out, as neither team really seems to be able to get any pressure on the in opposing team's zone, and there's a seeminlgy harmless exchange between French Captain and star midfielder Zinedine Zidane and Italian defender Marci Materazzi. Materazzi seems to hold on to Zidane's shirt, Zidane says something, then Materazzi says something, Zidane appears to walk away, and then WHAM! runs into Materazzi, headbutts him in the chest, Materazzi falls to the ground. Zidane goes on to get a red card. Watch a video of it all happening here.
But before I break it all down for you, I'd like to tell you a little bit about Zinedine Zidane.
Zinedine Zidane is generally considered to be one of the greatest footballers of all time. He has won the FIFA World player of the year three times, and once as European Footballer of the year.

On April 26th, 2006, he announced he would retire from the sport, after the FIFA World Cup 2006. As such, the Final was the last game he would ever play, and he had a chance to retire on top of the world. Instead, he decided to headbutt some Italian defender and get a red card, and was ejected before the game even finished.

Why?

Materazzi and Zidane were watching a ball fly over when Materazzi grabbed his shirt. Zidane turns to him and according to lipreaders says "If you want my shirt, I'll give it to you after the game".

Zidane, who despite playing for the French team actually comes from Egypt, says that Materazzi then insulted his mother and sister, while other reports from lipreaders say that Materazzi called him a fucking terrorist.

Materazzi denies the claim saying "I didn't insult his mother. I lost my mother when I was 15 years old and I still get emotional when I talk about it." "I didn't call Zidane a terrorist and I certainly didn't mention his mother. I did not bring up Zidane's mother; for me a mother is sacred".

And here in my opinion is the absolute kicker:

"Zidane is my hero and I have always admired him alot."

Quotes taken from BBC SPORT.

Needless to say, this got alot of conspiracy theorists running, one of the most strange conspiracies being that the Italians had been developing these insults for two years before the World Cup, and had one for every major (non-Italian) player in the tournament. Unlikely, yes, but if true very disgusting.

Anyways, I suppose you're all wondering why I would bother to research so much on one topic. Well, this site, if I'm not mistaken, is called Like My Opinions Matter and I haven't really given my opinion on anything. So, I say that this whole scenario should be looked into further, and if conclusive evidence is found, Materazzi should be forced to return his World Cup ring (although this would never happen). If I happen to find out there's no such thing as a World Cup Ring, then I'll figure out some other punishment. I don't think getting fined is enough.

And before you go, here are some ways that Zinedine Zidane will be remembered:

A new way to solve problems
The Headbutt game
What really happened

~Asquaredx2

A few thoughts and announcements:

I KNOW this is a long time after the incident and no one cares, but I worked on it for a while and I've been pretty busy.

The reason I haven't been updating that often is because currently I am in a reach ahead course and there's alot of homework, plus I worked pretty hard on this one.

As for the site upgrades I had promised, they're coming, but I'm having some technical problems with the software necessary to do those things, and I'm really busy.

I don't think I need to say this, since most of my visitors come from his site, but be sure to check out Phleetside again, cos that one's up and running again after a brief shutdown. It's in the sidebar if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Metacafe recently underwent a site upgrade-ion (or however you say it), and I've used alot of their vids on this site, so for those of you who have pretty bad media players, I'm deeply sorry, but it may be time for you to upgrade (points at Aidan).

Yeah, that's pretty much all.