Marco Materazzi is a bad liar

In what I'm sure came as a surprise to, well, absolutely no one, Italian defender Marco Materazzi admitted to the press that he had insulted Zinedine Zidane before the latter's fateful headbutt in extra time of the World Cup final. Materazzi denied, however, that he had called Zidane a "dirty terrorist," as earlier reports had it.

"I did insult him, it's true," Materazzi said in Tuesday's Gazzetta dello Sport. "But I categorically did not call him a terrorist. I'm not cultured and I don't even know what an Islamic terrorist is."

If Materazzi wants me to believe that he didn't call Zidane a terrorist, maybe he should try an alibi a little bit better than "I don't even know what that word means." Last time I checked you didn't need to be "cultured" to be aware of the existence of terrorists. Perhaps he's been on Mars for the past decade, in a cave, with his eyes shut and his fingers in his ears. This would be like Materazzi calling Michael Ballack a Nazi, and then claiming that he couldn't have done so because, as an uncultured person, he had never heard of Nazis before.

Further adding to the unlikeliness was Materazzi's inability to even produce another reasonable insult that he could have called Zidane, saying simply, "It was one of those insults you're told tens of times and that always fly around the pitch." Okay, so what was it? It would be a lot more convincing if you could make something up. Or maybe it wouldn't. Liar.

Regardless of what Materazzi said, I am fully convinced that he had been trying all game to get Zidane thrown out. The Italians are incredibly respectful of Zidane's skill, but they're also aware of his temper, since he played for Juventus - a team well-represented on the Italian side - when he threw his Champions League headbutt in 2001 over nothing more than a hard tackle. Materazzi had, by most accounts, been tugging at Zidane's shirt all game, and the French players claimed he had been goading him as well. Shortly before the headbutt you can see Materazzi talking like crazy and Zidane saying very little in response. Materazzi was undoubtedly aware of Zidane's history and whatever the last thing he said was, it worked. Honestly, I would give you excellent odds that it was racist, largely because if Materazzi had really been goading Zidane all game to no effect, he needed to have upped the ante to draw that kind of reaction so late.

This doesn't excuse the folly of Zidane's move, of course, but if Materazzi genuinely said something racist, that's pretty poor sportsmanship too, don't you think? Especially if he was trying to get Zidane tossed, which he probably was. Players have been raked over the coals for brandishing imaginary cards, and Cristiano Ronaldo's smirk in the England game booked him passage out of the country, but what about calling a guy names in the hopes that he'll hit you and get tossed? I think that goes well beyond the boundaries of mere gamesmanship, especially if the racism card was pulled to gain the desired effect. Obviously this is only speculation, but really, if Materazzi had been insulting Zidane all game, why would some common insult like "your mother's a whore" push him over the edge? I don't buy it.