Teóricos da Bola

"We may soon know exactly what Materazzi said to Zidane, but we probably won't. Zidane will tell us what he sincerely thought the Italian told him; this will quickly be denied and some far more benign remark offered as to what was really said. The truth may escape for ever. We have been here before. Remember Eric Cantona's elegant aerial feet-first lunge at the spectator who had allegedly made aspersions about the footballer's mother? The victim of Cantona's anger claimed (really) that, following a foul, he remarked: "Off you go Cantona, it's an early bath for you." I'm tempted to say that the truth is somewhere in between, but I can't think of what that could be, except perhaps, if Cantona's mum was somehow saucily involved in the premature cleansing.
But have you noticed the crucial common factor between the two footballing perpetrators? Yup, both born in Marseille. As indeed was I. We're pretty touchy down there. We take insults seriously, all the more so if they touch on family honour. We - Eric, Zizou and I - retaliate, we hit out, we avenge. I admit I haven't done any of those recently, perhaps due to a lack of insults coming my way (none, to be exact). But the Marseillais spirit still lurks in me, as I realised when watching the game in my small Provençal village, not all that far from my native city. When Zidane performed his unusual head-butt, (aimed at his opponent's chest rather than his nose and forehead, as in the more traditional "Glasgow Kiss") it was obvious that the Italian must have seriously provoked him (though none of us knew how). My first thought was not, as it should have been, "stupid Zidane", but, "I wonder what Materazzi did."