Cara y Cruz: From "God" to a "dirty terrorist"

Only human after all - Zidane goes out with a bang.

According to the anti-racism group SOS Racism, Italy's Marco Materazzi (alternately called "Maserati" by our esteemed announcers) called France's Zinedine Zidane (alternately called "God" by teammate Thierry Henry) a "dirty terrorist", a taunt that caused Zidane to head-butt the Italian defender and thereby earn a red-card in yesterday's World Cup final, won by the Italians on penalties. Materazzi, predictably, has denied that he ever said that. Zidane has not said anything, but he is expected to speak about the incident in the coming days. There has been no confirmation of the exact comments and there might never be, but there are two certainties: 1) Materazzi must have said something shocking to cause Zidane to react so drastically; 2) An independent, non-partisan group has reliable sources that claim that Materazzi insulted Zidane with a racist slur.

Today I was planning on writing the usual match recap, detailing the highlights of a final game that involved two former champions, countless superstars, and one of the best players ever to lace up a pair of boots in the past few decades. Even as a physical, scrappy match dragged on into extra time knotted at one, I still looked forward to writing about the action: an unbelievably ballsy penalty kick by Zizou, done "a la Panenka", after the Czech player who famously chipped in a penalty kick to beat West Germany in the final of the 1976 European Championships; a quick equalizer by the Azzurri, Materazzi heading in another beautiful Pirlo corner (more importantly, this ruined my prediction of France's 1-0 victory on a goal by Zidane, a pick that proved to be correct for, oh, 17 minutes...); a controversially disallowed goal by Italy's Toni, followed by a non-call on another French penalty claim by les Bleus' Malouda; and in all, a tense, hard-fought battle for the Jules Rimet trophy. It wasn't a match that would make anyone's "Best Ever" list, with the quality of play as much an indictment of the team's nerves as a testament to how evenly matched they were - Italy clearly had the better of the first half, but France responded by controlling the game in the second half and extra time. When a header by the great Zizou was sensationally denied by Buffon deep into the first part of overtime, I was already imagining what I could write about such an intriguing, dramatic World Cup final: Zizou's impressive grand finale, Buffon's game-saving play, Malouda's inspired attacking, Cannavaro's take-no-prisoners defending, Vieira's deflating injury, Materazzi's vital goal...there were storylines galore.

There is an expression in Spanish: "cara y cruz", that refers to the face and the cross, or to the two sides of a coin, the contrast of the good and the bad. In soccer, it tends to refer to the two fortunes of a team or a player or a coach - you can experience both "la cara" y "la cruz" in quick succession, a fact illustrated during this World Cup. Consider Argentina's Maxi Rodriguez, who went from scoring a stunning game-winning goal against Mexico to being suspended for two games for throwing a ridiculous leaping punch at Germany's players after his team's quarterfinal loss. Or England's Wayne Rooney, who went from being his nation's savior to its sinner - miraculously returning from injury to inspire the Three Lions with his direct, tenacious attacks and all-around passion to earning an appalling red card for stomping on an opponent's privates (although most of England has tried to make Cristiano Ronaldo the scapegoat, something tells me that Ricardo Carvalho's nuts would beg to differ). On Sunday, we all began the game with lofty expectations for Zidane's final performance: after dazzling the world with his play over the past fortnight, what could he do for an encore? Seven minutes in, when he showed amazing composure in chipping in a penalty in a World Cup final, it seemed that Zizou could in fact do no wrong. Upon his return to the French national team, Henry famously said that "God lives, and he has just returned to play for France"; maybe Henry wasn't kidding, maybe we were watching a living deity, maybe Zizou was attaining some sort of soccer immortality. But just over an hour later, even the great Zidane was subjected to the cruel duality of "cara" y "cruz". After exchanging words with Materazzi, Zizou stopped in his tracks, turned around, and launched his head into Materazzi's chest. The Argentine ref had no choice: Zidane saw red.

Italy would go on to win the Cup on penalty kicks, finally breaking their penalty curse and once again showing how atrocious, unfair, and anticlimactic it is to decide a winner on penalty kicks, but it was instantly clear that the day's headlines would not be about the Azzurri, Lippi, Buffon, or Cannavaro - the story was Zidane. What happened? Why did he lose his cool at such a pivotal moment? What did Materazzi, a notoriously dirty player, do to provoke him? No one said anything after the match, not Zizou or Materazzi or any of their teammates. It was a mystery, only adding to the intrigue. But then, almost 24 hours later, the truth started to leak out: Materazzi had called Zidane, who hails from the North African nation of Algeria, a "dirty terrorist".

In the weeks leading up to the start of the World Cup, one of the main concerns was whether or not the tournament would be tarnished by the racism that has reared its ugly head in the soccer world in recent years. Germany has obviously been a country that has been the site of so much racism over the course of history, but racism in sports has an extensive background in Germany, too, from Jesse Owens' victory in the 1936 Olympics to the Israeli hostage situation during the 1972 Olympics - the last thing that the Germans wanted was a repeat performance, but there were plenty of incidents in Europe this year to give them cause for concern. Fans in Spain, Italy, and Germany had yelled racist chants, making monkey noises when black players had the ball and throwing banana peels on the pitch; the chants in Zaragoza were so hard to ignore that Barcelona's Samuel Etoo started to walk off the pitch, only to be persuaded to keep on playing. In Italy, Lazio's Paolo Di Canio was suspended for making the Nazi salute to his team's far-right fans. Spain's coach, Luis Aragones, was reprimanded for using a racist insult about France's Henry to encourage his player Jose Antonio Reyes to play better and "show that black s*** that you're better than him" (Reyes and Henry are teammates at Arsenal). France's team was further subjected to racist tension when their country's right-wing politician Le Pen claimed that the French team could not be successful because there were too many black players on the squad, meaning that the team did not reflect the true ethnic make-up of the country. There was no greater nightmare for FIFA, save a terrorist attack, than the fear that their signature tournament would be marred by racism. Henry had joined with other soccer players to lead the fight against racism in soccer and, for all but the last 15 minutes of the tournament, the World Cup had been devoid of any ugly incidents involving racism. Marco Materazzi changed that. And sadly, Zizou could not control his notorious temper (he was sent off in the '98 finals and served a one-game suspension in these finals for accumulated yellow cards). Worse still, Italy's triumph will undoubtedly be overshadowed by their player's racist taunts. But even worse, a World Cup that had put "the beautiful game" on display for one glorious month in Germany will not be remembered for any of its highlights, but rather for a racist punk who ruined it for the rest of us.

And by "us", I mean over a billion soccer fans who watched the game around the world. And that is what's scary. In response to Zidane's head-butt, numerous French journalists wondered on Monday morning what his action would mean to the millions of youngsters who idolized the great star; they asked aloud, "What will we tell the kids? How will we explain what Zidane has done?". But the hard part will not be explaining why Zizou lost his cool - not everyone can calmly walk off the pitch like Etoo or have the composure to stay calm and lead an anti-racism campaign like Henry - the hard part will be explaining how racism is not something that we read about it history books, but something that is everywhere in the world, even on the soccer pitch.

On Sunday, Spain's daily sports newspaper Marca showed a photo of Zidane with a soccer ball beneath the headline "Even she's gonna miss you". And it's true. Not only are there millions of fans who have cherished every chance to watch him play, but the ball will miss Zidane's magic skills. But what we'll all really miss from this tournament is not the great skill of soccer's shining star or a month full of great players and dramatic games, but we'll miss the innocence of it. Soccer is the world's greatest sport not because of the magic that happens on the field, but the beauty of everything that surrounds it: the passion of the fans, the worldwide bonds that it forges, and the emotions that it inspires. Soccer is beautiful because for a moment a war in the Ivory Coast ended so its people could enjoy the team's participation in the World Cup. Soccer is beautiful because a nation like Spain, with players from all its different regions, lock arms and sing their national anthem with a patriotism rarely seen in that country. Soccer is beautiful because England's fans take over a stadium with their deafening renditions of "You'll Never Walk Alone". Soccer is beautiful because Argentina's superstars are reduced to floods of tears after losing to Germany, barely able to walk off the field. Soccer is beautiful for a million reasons, but yesterday, an indelible black mark overshadowed the beauty of the world's game - and it wasn't a headbutt. Racism has the power to black out all of the beauty in soccer. It can't be erased. It can't be explained. And today, when the world should be talking about everything else, it will dominate the headlines.

Today, Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball for the best player of this World Cup. Tonight, Italy's team returned to millions of ecstatic fans in Rome to celebrate their World Cup title. And I won't write about it. And fans won't talk about it. And people won't care about it. Racism is the story of the day.