Post by Slim K team on Jul 12, 2006 16:01:36 GMT -8
[glow=red,2,300]'He Lost His Mind Yesterday'[/glow]
French Are Still Wondering What Set Off Zinedine Zidane
"I saw Zinedine Zidane first around 1996 at the 'EURO CUP' in England, to me personaly he was and still is one of the best footballer and greatest athlets of all time beside Pele, Maradona, Beckenbauer, Platini etc... A midfielder like no other, his elegant dribbling like Pele, balance, passing ability, shot accuracy like Beckenbauer, shot selection, and well-placed free kicks have made him one of the game's finest players and the natural successor of Michel Platini as France's top playmaker. His precise control over the flow of the game and his ability to hold and protect the ball remain highly regarded.
He is one of the most cool, sophisticated athletes on the field, so what did happen at the World Cup Final 2006 everybody's asking??
Whatever happened, I'am 100% sure that there is a perfect explanation for Zidane's (re)action ... the second it happened, I knew that Marco Materazzi must'be offended Zidane haviely by attacking verbaly female family memebers or with a rasict remark!!!
I absolutly understand (since I'm myself North African native (Tunisia) and know the mentality) and support Zinedine Zidane no matter what!
I think it is very sad to see a living legend retire that way."
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 10, 2006; 3:52 PM
PARIS, July 10 2006-- 'France cheers on Zinedine Zidane but still wonders what provoked his head-butt'.
French soccer captain Zinedine Zidane -- voted the World Cup's top player -- should have been reveling in a hero's welcome Monday afternoon.
Instead, he stood on a balcony overlooking a crowd of cheering fans at Paris's Place de la Concorde and broke down into great, heaving sobs.
One of France's few modern-day heroes and one of the greatest soccer players of his generation, Zidane -- in a startling show of rage in the 110th minute of Sunday's World Cup championship -- transformed a night of patriotic pride into a morning of national shame and despair across France.
"The hardest thing is not to try to understand why Les Bleus lost a World Cup final match that was within reach," the French daily sports newspaper L'Equipe wrote, but "to explain to tens of millions of children around the world how you allowed yourself to head butt Marco Materazzi."
The incident was replayed dozens of times on French television: Zidane and Italian defender Materazzi exchanging words, then Zidane suddenly turning and plowing his head into Materazzi's chest, knocking the Italian on his back.
"Why? Why? Why?" screamed a French announcer in anguish as he watched the replay of the incident that led to Zidane's ejection from the game, which Italy won 5-3.
French fans speculate that the Italian player made a comment insulting Zidane's mother, the worst affront for a son in many parts of the world. The French anti-racism advocacy group SOS Racism issued a statement alleging that "several very well informed sources from the world of football" said Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist." Zidane's parents are Algerian.
"It is absolutely not true. I didn't call him a terrorist. I don't know anything about that," Materazzi said when his team landed at an Italian military airfield Monday. "What happened is what all the world saw live on TV."
Zidane has not said what provoked his reaction. His agent, Alain Migliaccio, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that Zidane told him the Italian "said something very serious to him, but he wouldn't tell me what."
Regardless of the Zidane's reasons, a nation that had been lifted out of a year-long malaise by the unexpected success of its aging, ethnically mixed soccer team, was plunged into new melancholy Monday trying to reconcile how its hero had fallen so low.
Laurent Languet and his 8-year-old son, Valentin, stood in the heat of the Place de la Concorde awaiting the team's arrival.
"He was so disappointed last night that he wouldn't talk to us," Languet said of his son, who wore a Zidane T-shirt. "Today he feels better, but I still haven't tried to explain to him what Zidane did. It's impossible to explain it to my son, but he understood that to show that much violence, the Italian player must have insulted him fiercely."
That was the excuse much of France offered up in its psychoanalysis of the player who won the World Cup's top player award and at the same time displayed a shocking moment of unsportsmanlike conduct.
Zinedine Zidane, the 34-year-old son of Algerian (North Africa) immigrants, grew up in a poor suburb of the southern French port city of Marseille. Some fans blamed his upbringing in La Castellane, a tough neighborhood, for his aggressive nature.
"Zidane will remain a great player," Ayoub Argoubi, a 17-year-old resident of the soccer star's boyhood community, told the French newspaper Le Monde. "He may have forgotten us, but his head butt is a leftover from Castellane."
Newspapers around the world were less forgiving.
"Zizou loses control," declared the front page of Beirut's French-language L'Orient-Le Jour, which went on to describe his behavior as shameful.
Zidane has a history of losing his temper under duress in important games. During the 1998 World Cup playoffs, he received a red card for stomping on a player from Saudi Arabia.
Coach Raymond Domenech canceled a parade that had been planned for the Champs-Elysees, where viewing stands and banners of red, white and blue had been prepared for a win-or-lose World Cup procession in advance of Friday's Bastille Day celebrations.
Instead, fans gathered at the Place de la Concorde, the spot where Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were publicly guillotined during the French Revolution.
After a lunch with French President Jacques Chirac, the team clambered off a bus at the front of the crowd, faces somber, looking more like they were bracing for a beheading than like they were being welcomed home.
Despite yells of support from the crowd, Zidane could barely face the gathering from the balcony where the team was standing. His face set in a grimace, he barely looked up, and he gave only a slight wave to the throng baking in the sun below.
Gael Solignac, a 30-year-old computer technician from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, watched from below.
"I was very disappointed with the way Zidane ended his career," Solignac said.
Expressing the sentiment of many French, he added, "First, people will talk about this unbelievable action, then what will remain is a great man, a great player who brought so much to French soccer and French society."
Bio. who is Zinedine?
Zinedine Yazid Zidane (often incorrectly spelled Zinédine, Arabic: زين الدين زيدان transliteration: Zīn ad-Dīn Zīdān), (born June 23, 1972), popularly nicknamed Zizou, is a former French football player of Kabyle Algerian (nothern african descent) who starred for both the French national team and for four club teams, most recently Real Madrid. Zidane is often considered to be the best footballer of his generation and one of the greatest of all time. A midfielder, his elegant dribbling, balance, passing ability, shot accuracy, shot selection, and well-placed free kicks have made him one of the game's finest players and the natural successor of Michel Platini as France's top playmaker. His precise control over the flow of the game and his ability to hold and protect the ball remain highly regarded.
Zidane received international attention with his two headed goals in the 1998 World Cup final against Brazil that essentially won his country's first ever title.
He has been elected FIFA World Player of the Year three times (1998, 2000, 2003), a record that has only been matched by Ronaldo, and once as European Footballer of the Year (1998). In 2004, Zidane was added to the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers selected by Pelé as part of FIFA's centenary celebrations.
As announced on 25 April 2006[3], Zidane retired from international football after the 2006 World Cup Final on 09 July 2006.
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THE FINAL GAME ... CLOSE BUT...
France had several chances to put Sunday's title game in regular time and in overtime. A look at the team's near-misses:
53rd minute: France could argue it deserves a second penalty kick when Florent Malouda is taken down by Gianluca Zambrotta in the penalty area at the end of an impressive fast break.
63rd minute: Henry ends up one-on-one with Cannavaro and shoots from about 15 yards. Goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon dives to his left and makes the save.
71st minute: Zidane, pictured, takes a free kick from the left side, but Buffon gets there to punch it away before a French attacker can head it toward the goal.
100th minute: Franck Ribery shoots inside the penalty area, but it's just wide.
104th minute: Willy Sagnol swings in a cross from the right side and Zidane is all alone for a header from near the penalty spot. Buffon reacts quickly and palms it over the crossbar.
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DEUTSCH:
[glow=red,2,300]„Deine Mama ist eine Nutte“[/glow]
Ist Zidane wegen dieser Beleidigung ausgeflippt?
Von LARS BEIKE und HEIKO OSTENDORP
Der Fußball-Gott hat sich selbst aus dem Himmel gestürzt – und ist in der Hölle gelandet.
Zinedine Zidane (34). Schmerzhaft und tragisch sein Abgang. Mit voller Wucht rammte Amok-Zidane Italien-Verteidiger Marco Materazzi den kahlen Schädel in den Brustkorb. Brutal und ohne Vorwarnung. ROT im WM-Finale nach 110 Minuten. Ein schändliches Ende als Fußball-Rambo.
Wie kann ein Spieler so ausrasten? Im WM-Finale, seinem allerletzten Spiel? So kurz vor der absoluten Krönung?
Franz Beckenbauer ist sicher: „Irgendwas muß Materazzi ihm gesagt haben.“ Frankreich-Trainer Raymond Domenech: „Sonst hätte er nicht so reagiert.“
Zidanes Agent Alain Migliaccio: „Er sagte mir nur, daß Materazzi etwas sehr ernstes zu ihm gesagt hat. Er wird in den nächsten Tagen darüber sprechen. Sonntagabend ist etwas in ihm explodiert. Er ist sehr enttäuscht. Er wollte nicht, daß seine Karriere so zu Ende geht.“
„CNN“ berichtet, der Moslem und Sohn algerischer Einwanderer sei als „Terrorist“ beleidigt worden. Brasiliens TV-Sender „Globo“ hat die Szene von einem Lippenleser deuten lassen. Danach soll Materazzi Zidanes Schwester Lilas zweimal als „Nutte“ beschimpft haben. In Frankreich und beim seriösen englischen TV-Sender Channel 4 heißt es, Materazzi hätte seine Mutter als „Nutte“ bezeichnet.
Das Tragische dran: Malika Zidane ist am Morgen vorm Finale mit schweren gesundheitlichen Problemen ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert worden.
Was Zinedines Ausraster erklären würde, aber nicht entschuldigt.
Mit Tränen in den Augen schlich Kopfstoß-Zidane in die Kabine. Später durch einen Hinterausgang aus dem Stadion, verkroch sich im Mannschaftsbus.
Der Abgang von Materazzi genau so schäbig. Mit „Ghettoblaster“ auf der Schulter stapfte er wortlos zum Ausgang. Schlechtes Gewissen?!
