[AGL] about Zinedine Zidane's head-butt

[Gerry]

Mike,
Check this out
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/dr_z/07/10/zidane/index.html

I enjoyed the World Cup. Some great athletes on display. Poisonally I would
rather watch the Brazilians, who seem to do it with sorcery. But then I tend
to like all things Brazilian, especially their music.

The head butt is not unusual in American sports. It's the main reason
football players wear helmets with face guards. Some pros use the tactic as
their main weapon, especially linebackers and safeties. Back in the good old
days when men were men and women knew their place I played football
(quarterback) and caught a few helmets in vital places. It was not my
favorite sport to play, preferred those with little physical contact. But I
still love to watch it, brutality and all. No, we White boys (segregated
schools when I was a student) were not as a rule nearly as brutal the
players of today. We didn't have television to tutor us.

Soccer? Never played it much. In Korea we sometimes played a team of
schoolboys half our size who beat us regularly. I find it very pleasing
today to see Korean and Japanese baseball players in the major leagues. I
wonder why the Americans can't field a soccer team that can compete on the
highest level. I suspect it has something to do with the circumstances in
which the game is played in this country, Mothers watching every game,
referees and smooth grassy fields, doctors standing by, etc. In other
countries it is played among the boys, large and small, on grassless vacant
lots with little supervision until high school age. That was once the way
sports were played in this country, before little league and uniforms and
all that.

Which is best? Depends on what you are after.

Longing for 1950 again in NM,
G




----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele at ando.pair.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 12:03 PM
Subject: [AGL] about Zinedine Zidane's head-butt


> Here's some personal background on Zinedine Zidane's notorious head butt
of
> the Italian player in the final of the World Cup. Zinedine chose to hit
him
> in the sternum which knocked him down like a bowling pin.The video footage
> of the knockdown almost makes it look like a conjuring trick. Zinedine is
of
> Algerian background and the Italian player was dissing him.
>
> 50 years ago and counting when I lived the "student's" life in Paris, a
> friend of mine, Khalil Azouz nicknamed Ghazi, head butted me on the
> forehead. I was surprised by the strength of the impact and the
> unexpectedness and immediacy of its delivery. It almost gave me a
headache.
> Ghazi explained that he did it so I would know how dangerous the head butt
> is and be forewarned, as the top of the forehead used in the head butt is
so
> hard that striking soft tissue with it can wreak fearful damage.I was at
> that time consorting with Ghazi's friends, other arabs like him from
Morocco
> and other countries of the Mahgreb. They even knew I was a jew.  Ghazi
> claimed he was being solicitous of my welfare in their company. Ghazi
> himself was consorting with western women and was working at the US Air
> Force base at Orly. Ghazi eventually married a French jewish woman mainly
he
> said in view of permitting him to get to the US. He phoned me at home in
> Brooklyn after accomplishing this complicated deed and we met once or
twice
> as I remember. I do wish I could see him again in this life and hear of
his
> adventures.
>
> Zidane being the world class athlete that he is, could, if he had chosen
to,
> knocked every tooth out of the Italian player's mouth with a head butt.
> Instead of a red card penalty and getting kicked out of the game, he would
> have been arrested.
>
> and a passage from Time magazine:
>
> What will happen when Zidane answers the burning question of what was
said?
> Probably nothing. Polls show 61% of French people already forgive Zidane
for
> the head-butt, while 52% say they understand his violent response. Those
> numbers will probably increase a bit once the exact words Materazzi spoke
> are known. Meanwhile, even after seeing Zidane's astonishing implosion and
> France's ensuing defeat, sports writers voted him 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.
>
> Mike Eisenstadt
>
>
>