The best dude.

I wonder if Douglas Gordon will append this clip onto the end of ZIDANE, A 21st CENTURY PORTRAIT? It's nothing if not revealing.

The saddest single event of the 2006 World Cup and possibly all World Cups. If France had one, Zidane would have gone down as the best French player of all time and one of the best ever. Instead, he will be remembered as a youtube clip. A tragedy of greek proportions.

Materazzi's still a dick. Zidane's still awesome.

I think it's nuts to imagine that this is going to reduce Zidane's legacy to "a youtube clip," much less cast a pall of shame over his retirement, as so many sanctimonious American sportswriters seem to insist. More likely: sales of Zidane jerseys are going to spike, and the world will fondly remember Zizou as not just a great athlete, but a a man who would smash a (very possibly racist, almost definitely instigating) shit-talker's sternum in a second.
Awesome.

Also:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=395046&in_page_id=1770

First defender Marco Materazzi spoke in Italian - a language understood by Zidane who once played for Italian side Juventus - grabbed his opponent and told him 'hold on, wait, that one's not for a n***** like you.'

As the players walked forward Materazzi said: 'We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore.

According to reports in France, Zidane's mother is seriously ill at the moment and had to go to hospital on Sunday morning.

Other French players have told journalists that their colleague was particularly sensitive because of this mother's condition.

The player is fiercely proud of his family’s Arab background - and his mother who struggled with almost no money to bring up five children.

The family were originally from the village of Taguemoune, in the remote hills of Algeria.

Soon after France’s 1998 World Cup win - when Zidane scored two goals - Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the Front National, was complaining about the racial origins of the France team, singling out Zidane as 'a son of French Algeria'.

His comment was carefully loaded. The implication was Zidane was either a colonial lackey or a traitor to the country of his father's birth.

zizou rocks! hes my pride! the worlds pride!