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Hylas, I understand your point of view perfectly, and agree, someone in his position as a public icon and an example to young people should not have retorted to violence on, like I said, the wrong place and time, I do think it was stupid to head butt Materazzi when it was his last career game, however, (and here it is where you and I don't click), a man needs to go to certain extremes some times in order to set up boundaries between himself and other men, in this case, Materazzi was abusing him, in a split second, Zidane made a decision to make it VERY CLEAR that he would not accept his abuse, not from him or anyone else, and SHOWED him, with an action and not words (like it is said, actions speak better than words) what happens when you violate that personal boundary.
As I said in my post above, not only are we dealing with a situation in which a man is enforcing his boundaries, we are also dealing with a situation in which it is VERY HARD to control your emotions, furthermore, Football is a sport of a violent nature even though there are limits and rules to be followed.
Now, having taken the action that he did, he demonstrated to Materazzi and the rest of the world that he will not accept whatever insult was being thrown at him, and he took a specific stance. By stating that he did not regret what he did, he was REASSURING everyone that he did what he did in order to, again, MAKE IT VERY CLEAR that he does not condonde abusive behavior from anyone.
I believe that he said he was sorry because he did it in public and, for the third time, did it at the wrong place and time.
Now that is what I am talking about when I say that he stuck to his guns, think about this, if he had said that he regretted doing what he did, he would have shown WEAKNESS as someone who lost control of himself, someone who is not CONGRUENT with his thoughts and actions (he demonstrated plenty of congurence by standing on his own beliefs and self -assertiveness; in this case, headbutting the guy and then later stating he did not regret doing so)
Why did Chirac call him a hero? Because he spoke for the French, I imagine, if you hit them, they'll hit back.
I must say, I do not believe in Jesus' concept of "if they hit you, offer them your other cheek" and I believe that if someone hurts you, you must hurt them back so they understand that what they did is wrong and you will not let them do that again to you, and bear in mind that verbal offences can hurt much more than physical ones, and I am sure that whatever Materazzi told him hurt Zidane more than Zidane hurt him with the head butt.
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