The Head-Butting ButtheadZinedine Zidane caps off his brilliant, violent career.

Remarks from the Fray:

Penalties affect all play toward the end of the match.

France continued to outplay Italy in extra time, but being a man down they couldn't press as much and had a hard time getting the final touch past what appeared, at times, to be six to eight Italian defenders. Italy, either gassed or believing they could actually win on PKs after Zidane's gaffe did not make a single attack, making it even more difficult for the French to score. If Italy did not know they had PKs to fall back on, they would have been forced to press to actually score. [...]

We saw this kind of weak play throughout the knockout rounds. People that state that the sometimes-dull play of extra time is a great argument for PKs nearly always neglect to point out that the reason for the dullness is the lack of any necessity to score because of . . . PKs. [...]

Waiting for PKs is the football equivalent of punting on 4th down and 1 from the opponent's 40-yard line in American football. The coach knows that if he presses the issue and goes for the win, even if it is to his advantage to do so, he will be safer just sitting back and taking the easy route. If a coach goes for it on fourth and one and gets stuffed, everyone blames the coach, but if he just punts it and the team loses by the points they gave up in not going for it, the focus is on the team. If a coach attacks strongly and loses as the result of some error or counterattack in extra time, the coach will be held accountable, but if he plays ugly football waiting for the inevitable PKs and then loses, he can just sit by the old saw that "PKs are a coin flip" and escape most of the blame. FIFA does not need to be encouraging this basic human impulse to the detriment of the game. [...]

As this World Cup demonstrated so often, most players and coaches will opt for the dull route, fully prepared to avoid blame for the "lottery" of the penalty kicks or revel in victory should they get lucky. And that is terrible for the sport.

--Torvald

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Every single one of the so-called thuggish incidents that you mentioned followed an incident of racist abuse aimed at Zidane. I know that it is hard for many Americans in particular to comprehend that someone who looks white to us could actually be the victim of racism, but it is quite common. Zidane has put up with it for his entire life. Imagine being taunted in your home country as a racial outsider for your entire career, suddenly being elevated to the symbol of some non-existent nationwide racial harmony and tolerance, being pointed out by media all around the world as an example of the unifying power of football while the world's governing body talks but does nothing substantive to quell the rising tide of racism in the world's game. Suddenly, in your last match, the World Cup final, having giving your all despite having been assaulted on a play that dislocated your shoulder but was not even whistled as a foul, a crude defender calls you a "terrorist" or questions your right to call yourself French. He had every right to snap and he should have aimed for Materazzi's face.

--notnelson

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Flopping helps soccer as much as spitballs and steroids help baseball, as much as goaltending and faking a charge help basketball, as much as fighting helps hockey and so on and so forth. Flopping rarely exists at levels below the top leagues and the World Cup. It makes a mockery of the game since one undeserved penalty kick is often the deciding goal. It points out the more important problem with the sport. That is the unwillingness of FIFA to admit that one referee can no longer call and control this game at this level. At least they should double the number of linesmen and referees. They should also devise a workable instant replay. Floppers should be dealt with swiftly and decisively. Only by taking the game from the fakers and giving it back to the athletes will it continue to be the beautiful game that it is.

--bigorange

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If teams could put fresher legs on the field by "re-substituting" benched players during overtime, combined with the increased pressure of a sudden-death format, we would probably see fewer lame penalty-kick endings.

--A-Build

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Zindane was brilliant against Brazil and he did dominated the game in a cool and collected fashion. Explaining the headbutt through boiling cauldron metaphors is just dumb. A dread combination of fatigue, palpable frustration over Buffon's "no freaking way" save on Zindane's header, a game of being hammered and checked, and perhaps a racial insult proved to be Zindane's undoing. Understandable but an inexcusable lapse in judgment for a wily veteran. he made Rooney look like a paragon of level headedness by comparison. the only thing dumber than the head butt was substituting Henry late in the game. Yikes....

--whitetrashpopulist

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Nice article, in that it brought out the visceral, even brutal, nature of soccer at the highest level. I especially liked the "test of wills".

In this, soccer contrasts sharply with the sports that are most popular in the US. Tennis...say no more. Baseball, well hardly a visceral sport. Baseball players need to be skilled, but they don't have much opportunity to come into contact. Basketball, a bit more visceral, but still, no touching allowed. No real way to take the ball off an opposing player. No equivalent of the soccer tackle. Football, you say? Well yes, a very physical game, lots of hitting and physical danger. Even so, the padding and helmets and the deliberate, choreographed nature of the game make it seem like it is being played by robots more than flesh-and-blood human beings.

Two other visceral sports, perhaps as much so as soccer, are rugby and ice hockey. Continuous fluid play, lots of contact. Needless to say, they are not popular in the US.

--lloyd667

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(7/14)

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• Robert J. Samuelson: A Depression? Hardly
• Dana Milbank: Still Sorry About Walter Reed
• Michael Gerson: Cindy McCain's Courage