Word: italianity
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Nearly 72 hours after French soccer star Zinedine Zidane closed his illustrious career with an ignoble ejection for head-butting an Italian defender, Zidane told a still-agonizing French public what had provoked the most notorious head-butt in the history of the game. Exactly what button had Marco Materazzi pushed to cause Zidane to forsake his teammates, and the still obtainable victory in Sunday's World Cup final, and instead to opt for the hollow satisfaction of corporal payback? What hateful words could have detonated the violence that provoked Zidane's ejection, and helped deny him and France...
...pitch, some pundits are bound to insist Zidane's final on-field act will forever compromise what would have been a legendary status. Earlier media analyses of what had preceded the bust-up depicted Materazzi's comments as Islamophobic or racist in nature - with one suggesting the Italian had called Zidane a "(expletive) Arab, Muslim terrorist...
Forget the schmaltzy big-budget TV series French networks are again broadcasting to audiences looking for entertainment during languid summer vacation evenings. The big ticket this season is more reality TV than the usual melodrama: the mystery of what Italian defender Marco Materazzi said to provoke French soccer hero Zinedine Zidane's now notorious burst of violence during Italy's defeat of France in their World Cup final on Sunday. Almost 48 hours after Zidane's furious head-butting of Materazzi in the chest - an act provoking Zidane's ejection, an ignoble end to his otherwise stellar career - the mystery...
...year, it isn't surprising the first explanations of what prompted Zidane's violent reaction painted Materazzi as a foul-mouthed bigot. The English daily The Guardian led things off with a translation of an audio feed picked up by a TV camera, and depicted an escalating exchange in Italian ending with Materazzi calling Zidane a "(expletive) Muslim, dirty terrorist". Other media analyses relied on lip-readers scrutinizing video images, and came away with interpretations ranging from comments suggesting Zidane's father was a traitor to his native Algeria to insults of Zidane's mother and accusations that his sister...
...Materazzi acknowledged he talked trash to Zidane, but said there was no racism, Islamophobia, or "yo mama" aspect to it. "It was the kind of insult you will hear dozens of times and just slips out of the ground," Materazzi told the Italian daily La Gazetta dello Sport. "I didn't call Zidane a terrorist and certainly didn't mention his mother." For his part, Zidane has only told intimates that the comment that set (and sent) him off was "very serious," but that he regrets the brutal reaction that marked the end to the last game of his long...