And I guess Zidane speaks Italian from his time at Juventus? Or was the other guy speaking French?
 

Hey, and don't we spell it "Brazilian?"
 

Let us hope that the lip reader knows how to read lips in Italian (was that the language Zidane and Materazzi were speaking?) better than you know how to spell the name of the country that supposedly has this lip reader.
Come on Richard... you can get some people to say anything about anyone. It doesn't mean that it is true. The fact remains that Zidane did something terrible with his head butt (although Domenech, the French coach, believes that if he was caught by a replay, then he should have been permitted to stay, even if he committed the foul... typical French logic and sportsmanship). This is not the first time Zidane did this as a certain Saudi found out a few years ago. Trash talk is common in all sports. Believe it or not, the odds are good that even the French talk trash (although I'm sure any of Les Bleu would be pulled out of the game if they used anything but French epithets... the French language police would be all over them).
"Oh, the shame of Italy." I'm afraid not Richard.
Get over the fact that both Brazil (n.b.)and France lost and please just refer to the Azzurri as Campione del Mondo.
 

Just for the record, Brasil in Portuguese is spelled Brasil. Since I speak a tiny bit of Portuguese, and am very fond of Brasil, I write Brasil. Sue me.

Domenech has a point, since the refs are not allowed to use replay.

Of course we agree that the foul was a terrible thing, a completely inappropriate way to handle the situation, a truly ugly act. Absolutely. But isn't calling someone's sister a whore and calling Zidane a "dirty terrorist" pretty awful as well. Zidane lost his cool; Materazzi knew exactly what he was doing. Which is worse?
 

Richard,
A few things. I speak Italian but when I write in the English language, I don't write Brasile.
Domenechs point was that if you are not caught, a foul is fine. What a mindset!
Sorry to disagree, but calling someone's sister a whore and calling Zidane a dirty terrorist, while pretty awful, just doesn't rise anywhere near the level of a dirty intentional physical foul IN A FOOTBALL MATCH. In one case it hurts someone's feelings which have nothing to do with the match. In the other, it hurts the ability to physically play the game ( playing the game is the whole point, right?). That is why there are no penalties for trash talk in a soccer match, but there are for physical altercations. How are you so sure that Materazzi said what Zidane said he said? Do you know what other trash talk occurred during the game? Was it worse or not as bad as what Materazzi was alleged to have said?
The fact is, Zidane totally blew it; his lack of sportsmanship in deliberately trying to injure an opponent is an insult to the sport... emphasis on the word deliberate. If you think this is in any way to be tolerated, or think it comes anywhere near trash talk (no matter how bad the trash talk is) then I think you don't know what it is to play a highly competitive sport. No one should ever try to intentionally harm an opponent in soccer.
 

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Well, I'm in agreement with Richard on this one. What's called for is a penalty for any trash talk that rises to the level of ethnic slur, gender discrimination, etc. If you call someone a fag, for instance, you would get a pink card. If you call's someone's sister a whore, you should get a red card (for obvious reasons). If you call someone a "Brasilian", perhaps you should just be admonished by the ref but allowed to play on.
 

Could someone explain to me why we translate country names anyway. If someone from Mexico is named Roberto, we don't automatically call him Robert. So why can't we leave other proper nouns like country names alone as well? Why can't we just call Spain Espana? Or Italy Italia?
 

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Oh the shame of censorship.
 

This just in: Zidane's sister IS a whore!