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Appearing on French TV, Zinedine Zidane said Marco Materazzi insulted his mother and sister, and he denied speculation—fueled by international lip readers—that the Italian defender had called him a “terrorist.” Good lesson in reserving judgment till the facts are in, eh Dave?
This, of course, makes Zidane’s behavior even less explicable—insults against mothers being fairly standard, regrettably, wherever men gather to compete—and therefore even sadder. There’s talk, now, of having him stripped of the Golden Ball Award, which is probably fair enough—though on the merits he certainly earned it. (Worth noting, too, that the guy is a genius and deserves to be remembered primarily as such.)
