Word: balled
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...Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the waning minutes of overtime of the World Cup final. Zidane, known as Zizou to the fans who worship him, later explained that he erupted after having to endure one insult too many--not to mention a game's worth of off-the-ball rough stuff--from a fullback who has been called l'animale in Italy...
...watch the penalty box on any corner kick in a game in Italy's Serie A, or England's Premiership, you see defenders grabbing strikers in full nelsons, yanking their shirts, throwing elbows, pushing, kicking--and that's before the ball is put in play. In response, players such as Portugal's young sensation Cristiano Ronaldo have learned to dive and writhe on the ground the instant an opponent is within spitting range. Throw in trash talk, some of it outright racist in a Europe where African and Brazilian players flourish, and you can see why a player like Zidane...
...Perhaps the Justices were aware that Ginzburg had posted the magazine from two tantalizingly named Amish towns, Intercourse and Blue Ball, Pa. But this was merely an example of the magazine's fondness for schoolyard raillery. Surely, even then, "obscene" was a weighter word than "adolescent...
...little price for his act among his many corporate sponsors - including Canal Plus, with whom he's long had an exclusive relationship for announcements regarding his career. But with world soccer authority FIFA having opened an investigation into the head-butting incident, and warning Zidane could lose the Golden Ball award sports writers accorded him as the most valuable player in the World Cup, the full impact of his now infamous header may not be fully known for some time still. Zidane's career may well be over, but his exact legacy is still a work in progress...
...head-butt, while 52% say they understand his violent response. Those numbers will probably increase once the exact words Materazzi spoke are known. Meanwhile, even after seeing the head-butt, sports writers voted Zidane the Cup's best player and awarded the Frenchman the tournament's Golden Ball - a superlative their peers denied Zidane in 2001 voting for best pro player in Europe, after he broke a bone in a rival's face with an earlier head-butt...