Referring to the incident leading to Zinedine Zidane's sending off Mr. Badrul opined, "It was a clever trap laid by the Italian team to which the even-tempered football genius had succumbed so easily." Now let me get this straight, the only person responsible for the provocation was Materazzi and Materazzi himself and it was very naïve to accuse the whole Azzuri team for the incident. Have no doubt that it was a one-off incident and nowhere will you find another example of the Italian team trying to get an opposition player sent off like that.

On the other hand, this "even-tempered" football genius has managed to get a red card about a dozen times in his career. We all know about Zidane stamping on a Saudi player in the '98 World Cup and fighting with a Borussia Dortmund player in a crucial Champions League encounter. There are several other lesser-known incidents like Zidane getting involved in a brawl with a Deportivo player and his lashing out on a Villarreal player for example. No doubt, Zidane has been gifted with an outrageous amount of talent but the cost of all that is a short fuse. From time to time, Zidane just loses his head. Now anyone who has played a competitive team sport at any level will know that there is a fair amount of trash talking going on (unfortunate, but nevertheless true). People say stuff on the field in the heat of the moment…but everybody does not respond to verbal abuse with a violent head-butt in the middle of the field. It is obvious that both Zidane and Materazzi were guilty of unsporting behaviour in this latest incident and they have both been duly punished by FIFA.

Suggesting FIFA to declare both the Italian and French teams joint world champions was equally unrealistic. Let us not let this incident take anything away from Italy's awesome WC campaign where they won fighting against unimaginable odds (the scandal back at home, the press calling for Marcello Lippi to stand down, police raiding Cannavaro's home, Buffon being investigated, Pessotto attempting suicide and the list goes on). Italy thoroughly deserved to be champions. The only regret is that the greatest player of the last decade and one of the all-time greats of football had to leave the game in such an ignominious fashion. Let us not remember Zizou for one damned red card; let us remember him for all the magical moments he has provided the football world with.