As one of the shortest kids in my class, I was teased in school. A lot. Midget, munchkin, shrimp, oompa loompa (and those were the more lighthearted ones)—I
heard it all. I was too young then to understand that the “bigger” kids who picked on me were just taking their insecurities out on someone unlikely to beat them up. But it still hurt. Cowards.
I was taught not to fight back. No, that would be unfeminine. So I kept quiet, then went home and cried. Until the day Scottie (who was actually rather large) called me a name one time too many and I, almost intuitively, kicked him in the shin. Hard. He wailed, bouncing up and down pathetically on one leg while bracing his injured one, tears wetting his plump cheeks. Maybe it wasn’t the correct thing to do, but I have to say it felt good. That day, I went home smiling, bounding forward with a spring in my step that became jauntier the more I thought of Scottie’s burning shin.
Maybe that’s why my first reaction to Zinédine Zidane’s action was that it was just that: reaction. Why else would he have walked ahead of Marco Materazzi and then snapped, stopping dead in his tracks to pivot with unbridled determination? Head whispered “keep quiet,” instinct screamed “head butt.”
They were very hard words. You hear them once and you feel bad. You hear it twice. Then you hear it a third time ... I'm a man, and I'm telling you that I would rather have been punched in the face than have heard those words. But I heard them, and I reacted. --Zinédine Zidane
Isn’t modern life a highly unnatural state where human beings are constantly trying to suppress natural impulses? Maybe stress is just the body’s way of dealing with forced environments like the office. If something at work isn’t working, you’re supposed to call a meeting. In the wild you’d bite someone’s head off. And you wonder why you get headaches during endless conference calls.
Materazzi has admitted an insult, apparently a stab against Zidane’s mother and sister. We’re built to defend our turf, and that starts with ourselves and our families. So why are people so quick to cast the first stone? In the world of football, it’s called a red card, and doubtless you can’t stop a game to find out the nature of the provocation, if there was one. Zidane knows he shouldn’t have done it and was legitimately told to walk. But Materazzi should get his punishment, too. And further investigation is needed to determine why Materazzi was holding Zidane's arms from behind to begin with. Both men scored the game’s only two goals, and both should have gotten a red card. Who knows what that would have meant during penalties, but can we really imagine Zidane coming back to lift the trophy after what happened? He didn’t go out with the trophy, he went out with a bang.
Zidane looked like a man reacting to a bully. His physical assault (defence?) on the Italian defender was clearly out of line; but verbal onslaughts, contrary to the old childhood adage, can cut deep. I’m sure Materazzi’s chest feels better already, and Scottie’s shin has long healed. But words stick. Except that this wasn’t a school playground, and it wasn’t the wild, although it does often resemble a bullring.
There has been a lot of talk about how this will affect the millions of kids who look up to Zidane and football players in general. While it’s too late to take it back or raise a red card above Materazzi’s blue shirt, it’s never a bad time to open a dialogue with children about the value of respect. With honesty, humility and maturity, Zidane can do it. And preserve a golden legacy still.
I have children myself, and I know what it's like. I will always tell them not to be taken advantage of, and to avoid this kind of situation. --Zinédine Zidane
