quote:

Originally posted by mikey1892:

quote:

Originally posted by ®osa:
Totti was provoked into spitting therefore it's ok...according to the Zidane brigade.

The best players are most easily provoked? The players with the worst tempers and shortest fuse play in Italy? The implications of that statement are endless...

I didn't meant for there to be any...

quote:

Originally posted by richard daniel:
What is quite ironic is that Materazzi received a more severe penalty than Zidane!! Zidane's
banning of three games is meaningless to him whereas Materazzi will miss two games. If anybody including the Fifa muppets believe that footballers are quiet choir boys while they are out there they are living in cloud cuckooland!
Zidane should have had his award taken away from him.

Interesting that De Rossi's elbow was deemed more serious than Zidane's headbutt in terms of the punishment too.
In future if a player is insulted by another, will that result in a 2 match ban, or was that just a special case because it was Zidane?

quote:

Originally posted by Calcio2:

quote:

Originally posted by richard daniel:
What is quite ironic is that Materazzi received a more severe penalty than Zidane!! Zidane's
banning of three games is meaningless to him whereas Materazzi will miss two games. If anybody including the Fifa muppets believe that footballers are quiet choir boys while they are out there they are living in cloud cuckooland!
Zidane should have had his award taken away from him.

Interesting that De Rossi's elbow was deemed more serious than Zidane's headbutt in terms of the punishment too.
In future if a player is insulted by another, will that result in a 2 match ban, or was that just a special case because it was Zidane?

It was more serious. As a victim, if I have to choose between receiving a headbutt in the chest and an elbow that splits my head open, I'll take the headbutt any day.

Taken away is right.

According to FIFA's damn stupid thinking, Poulsen should have been banned to.-- But he wasn't BECAUSE he is not ZZ, the beloved of the French people. blah blah blah

So it's worse to be called a bad name then have your ankles' kicked the bejesus out of.

FIFA-- about as useful as th UN

quote:

Originally posted by Calcio2:
In future if a player is insulted by another, will that result in a 2 match ban, or was that just a special case because it was Zidane?

Special case because it was the world cup final...I dont think anything would have happened to Materazzi had it been a league game.

Virgilio raises an interesting point. Footballers always say they'd prefer to be shot in the head than be spat at ("the worst thing you can possibly do"), or at least brainless English footballers do. Given the opportunity, which punishment would foro members choose?

1) Headbutt in the chest
2) Full swinging elbow to the face
3) Face full of opponent's saliva

I'd go for number 3 every time, but maybe that's why I never made it as a pro footballer. Tough call as for second choice. A headbutt to the solar plexus wouldn't be much fun, but I think I'd have to plump for the headbutt and hope for a poor aim. The full swinging elbow has a high probabilty of dislocated cheekbone (Fashanu on Beardsley), serious eye damage (Fash on Mabutt) or broken nose (Fash on most centre halves who played in England in the 90s).

I thought the De Rossi incident more shocking than Zidane's in its violence and almost as bad as the violent foul he committed on a Swiss player in a pre-WC friendly. Shocking bloke, but for all that I enjoyed his comedic stretching out of the arms when given the red card "Eh??? What did I do?"

I would go for number 3 too, but I would respond with a combination of 1 and 2.

Some pundit, I think it might be one of those old fashioned 'no-nonsense' defenders that are always paired with a commentator, repeatedly states that he'd rather have his leg broken than be spat at. Which is obviously completely ludicrous.

Sounds like a Butcherism...

I've never understood the degree of outrage over spitting, loathsome though it may be, compared to a headbutt or a swinging elbow (or a deliberate two-footed lunge, or setting out to inflict serious damage on, say, Alf Inge Haaland, for that matter).

Furthermore, out of the elbow, the headbutt or the spit, only the latter is guaranteed to leave you in a fit state to retaliate...

quote:

Originally posted by Sir George:
The full swinging elbow has a high probabilty of dislocated cheekbone (Fashanu on Beardsley)...

Ruddock on Beardsley but i take your point as its a good one...