He head-butted the man. Should he have? Not my call. And, no one else's. It was his call. Overall, he is still a fine player and a fine man in my books, and, even moreso for not taking any shit, at any cost. Like McGrath said, "Some things are more important than football."

The intention of the insults etc, was to provoke a fellow footballer into retaliation action that would cause his effectivness to be limited. This cynical action was not prevented and the player was not protected from this provocation by the officials who finished off the job for the Italian player who was not penalised.

Whatever insults Zidane was subject to and not protected from - there was nothing preventing him from taking this up with Mataratzzi when the game had finished (and there were not so many witnesses). He would have been thought an even finer man by many more people had he been able to take this course. He wasn't and he decided to take the law in his own hands and when you do this - you place yourself squarely in the wrong by setting a poor example.

Whilst you are actually playing football (at this level) the only thing more important than football is to show respect to your fellow man. It is called sportsmanship and both parties failed in this and the officials failed in their duty to enable a fair sporting contest.

The win at all costs mentalty and the inability of FIFA to deal with this - has just about overshadowed all the other fine aspects of the game shown elsewhere in this World Cup. One hopes that the next big football event will be different..............