Good question. That was the reaction of the announcer of the French TV network TF1 when French team star Zinedine Zidane unaccountably head-butted Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the chest, pancaking Materazzi and resulting in Zidane’s expulsion from the game just as overtimes were beginning.
It was the last game for Zizou, as he is called in France (he had already announced his retirement). More than a billion people watch the World Cup final, many of them knowing little about soccer but watching out of curiousity. Think of the impression Zidane left on millions of people who had never heard of him until today or watched a soccer game on television.
Not a good way to go out, for him or the game. Even the French paper Le Figaro made no excuses, saying Zidane “lost control of his nerves” and that the ref “understandably” expelled him from the game.
