"Who hit Materazzi during the final match of the football world cup in 2006?"
Evidently any Frenchy knew the answer: Zinedine "Zizou" Zidane! They all remembered their champion but my question is now why they did remember it. The answer is simple to me.
Because of his unintelligent behaviour.
In fact, we all for surely know that he won't be remembered for his wit, even if being considered by most as a football genius. And this is for several reasons, not last the fact that he made his team loose. Not that France had ever had any chance of winning, of course! Italy had shown itself as being the strongest team by far in all of the previous matches. And France had suffered a lot, with their team, composed mainly by old and worn players (average age was over 30), getting to the final phase by sheer luck.
The Azzurri should have already won the 2002 World Cup, but hideous political infringement on the match against the host nation (Korea) disfavoured them (through evident referee corruption).
But in 2006 Italy was going to prove much more determined to get on the highest step of the podium. Simply look at the following not exhaustive list to get convinced:
- Best Player: Fabio Cannavaro
- Best Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Buffon
- One of the best defending team
- One of the best attacks where ten different players scored a goal
- Every one of the 22 players playing in the team was Italian and playing in the Italian football league (it was the only team not to have players playing with abroad clubs). And this is important because we are talking of national football and not of private club-level football
- Defeated Germany (the host nation) 2 - 0 despite playing in Dortmund
- Defeated France even if the Blatter/Platini couple was trying to stop the Azzurri by using their political power (Have you ever asked why did Blatter was astonishingly not present to give Italy the World Cup during the winning ceremony?)
- Showed the world that this Zizou guy was nothing more than a pompously violent and patchy person who did not hesitate to physically attack an opponent players if nervous. On this subject most of us could ask why he was rewarded with the Best Player prize. Wasn't that act an instigation to violence? Weren't FIFA managers thinking to those candid youngsters who were peacefully watching the game? How could they react seeing that someone who was sent out for violent conduct was still being rewarded by the apparently corrupted FIFA guys?
And I agree with Materazzi staying calm (we all know it, Materazzi - 193 cm and 92 kg - could have easily spanked that little Zidane, had he wanted) and writing that "The 100 things I could have said to Zidane" book to make fun of him and offering the proceeds to charity.
Materazzi had won. Italy had won. Four crowns where now on the head of this incredible Italian team. Everybody was happy. But France. France was jealous. They have always been jealous of Italian Serie A and of the international level Italian football clubs were playing at. As someone said, England had invented football and Italy had perfected it. And not Zidane, but Francesco Totti, thanks to his incommensurable football skills, was going to get the place of best player of the recent years.
But, still today, haughty, inflated and pretentious French still tend to insist on the fact that they deserved to win and that Zidane (as you can read on most of the French forums) should have been even more violent toward Materazzi. What a grim reality... but we Italians love having fun and making jokes. So do you know what Italians used to say after winning the world cup final to make the moment less gloomy? They said, while savouring bottles of Italian spumante: "France, give us the Mona Lisa back!"
But pompous France will not accept giving back what had been stolen because that Louvre museum would then be no more interesting to anyone.
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