IT’S A GAME!!!
World Cup official shot himself: Juergen Kiessling, the man who organized the World Cup in Germany, attempts to commit suicide at 65?
Materazzi denies terrorist insult:
The BBC’s Ten O’Clock News also called in experts to study the television footage of the incident and determined the following:
Materazzi’s first word to Zidane was “no” before he then told him to “calm down”.
He then accused him of being a “liar” and wished “an ugly death to you and your family” on the day the Frenchman’s mother had been taken to hospital ill. This was followed by “Go f*** yourself”.
How rife is taunting in football?
Fifa investigates Zidane red card. This is a bit touchy. If Fifa determines that Materazzi used a racial slur of any kind, ownership of the World Cup could come into question as he scored one of the penalty shots and should have been ejected for race baiting.
It’s a game, people. It’s kicking a ball around a yard. It is supposed to be fun. It is supposed to provide exercise and teach teamwork and sportsmanship. It is not supposed to involve autopsies, courts, and lawyers.
Update: new transcript of the exchange discovered.
2 comments
Stephen Colbert did a *howler* a while back with a guest appearance of Alexi Lalas and how to *trash talk* to opposing teams. I think the video is here:
Here
I don’t know how familiar Materazzi is with French and French slang. Someone could have given him a “few harmless French taunts” to use against Zidane, that weren’t quite as harmless as he was led to believe.
There are terms in Russian that translate rather mildly into English, but will get your face stomped if you say them to a Russian. One keeps getting translated as “bastard” when it has nothing at all to familial relationships but is traced back to the Mongol invasion and isn’t taken very well at all.