THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Apparently the other player did “hurl insults” at Zidane, although the exact nature of what he said remains in contention (as is usually the case when two persons have an argument or altercation).

It is understandable that Zidane might have been irate, depending upon what exactly the Italian player said.

However, not knowing about soccer culture or French culture in general, I have no opinion on whether this was an outrageous act or not.

For example, is it typical to taunt an opponent during a game?  Is is typical to physically retaliate?  Etc.

Someone not familiar with the culture and customs of baseball might be equally perplexed upon observing a beanball war or a bench-clearing brawl.

In fact, before any Americans or baseball fans quickly lambaste this guy, think about the fact that in baseball if you simply look like you’re “grandstanding” or even smile when you hit a home run, you run the risk of getting a 90 mph potentially lethal projectile in your eye in your next AB.

Everything has to be taken in context.

Head butting someone like that in that competitive situation is clearly out of line and deserves a red card.  The context seems pretty clear to me.  On a personal and moral level, he clearly let his team down, for some of them at the most critical juncture of their careers.  It was a selfish, vicious act.

But for fun, you can play the Zidane Head Butt game:

http://www.addictinggames.com/zidaneheadbuttgame.html

There have been numerous remarks by pundits stateside (not sure about the rest of the world) about how Zidane’s actions “cost his team the game, championship, cup, etc” While certainly an unforgivable and foolish move, Zidane’s lapse of professionalism likely only cost his team a few percentage points of WE, considering that there were only a few minutes of OT left and the likelihood that the game was going to penalty kicks was very high (I’d say almost 80% or more).  Certainly Zidane would be an asset in PKs, but not that much over the sixth best PK taker on the team.  And if you look at waht actually happened in PKs, the Italians didn’t miss any of their kicks, making Zidane’s mistake even less costly from a bacwards looking point of view.

Finally, all the talk of what Materazzi might or might not have said is virtually irrelevant.  There seems to be only a very few things that can be said on the pitch that are truly unacceptable by soccer standards, and apparently he said none of these things.

Soccer is a game where it is not uncommon for opposing players to snipe at each other. Zidane’s reaction was certainly over the top, aggressive and fully deserved a red card. But people are making a lot about whether he cost France the final. Trezeguet, who missed the only penalty for France, is one of the world’s best strikers. Undoubtedly he would have taken a spot kick irrespective of whether Zidane was on the pitch or not. France would, in all likelihood, still have lost the shoot out.

The question then becomes would France have won in the 10 or so minutes that Zidane wasn’t on the pitch? There is never a satisfactory answer to this question, but given the flow of the game at that point I suspect the odds heavily favored penalties. So in summary the Zidane sending was not a huge factor to the outcome.

The scandal is that the most important tournament in world football (soccer) is settled by a rather arbitrary penalty shoot out, where a huge dollop of luck is required. Technically the game was a tie - but Italy are credited with a win.

Baseball, Football, Hockey, Basketball, Golf - need I go on - all have solutions to ties. Soccer does not. It is a disgrace and needs to change.