Just play

I thought about trying to come up with something eloquent about the greatness of sports in their purest form. However, I'm just going to be blunt. Marco Materazzi is an ass and should be suspended from international play for a long time. Yeah, I called him an ass. He can come head butt me in the chest if he deems it necessary. Sure, Zinedine Zidane probably shouldn't have head butted Materazzi in the chest and I'm not going to try too hard to defend him. I'm not sure exactly what he was thinking. Maybe he wasn't really thinking (would you consciously decide to head butt someone in the chest?). Maybe he thought he could get away with it. However, Materazzi is the worst kind of athlete. He's the kind of guy who will do whatever it takes to try to get under the skin of an opponent. That isn't what sports should be about!

What prevailed in the World Cup was the "if you can't beat 'em, get 'em to get red carded" philosophy. From Materazzi continually insulting Zidane and speaking bad about the females in his family to the Portugal players' antics in the game against England to get Wayne Rooney kicked out to all the diving and writhing and carrying on. It's ridiculous. At some point, you're just going to say "enough is enough!" I've been there. It's a natural human reaction to holding, grabbing, pinching, insults, etc.

Marco Materazzi isn't alone in this category. Reggie Evans grabbed at Chris Kaman's private area. Bruce Bowen has been accused of questionable antics in gaining his status as a star defender in the NBA. NBA players flop to draw offensive fouls and flail to draw fouls on defenders. David Eckstein, Craig Biggio and others lean into inside pitches to get free passes to first when they should be making an attempt to get out of the way of the ball. I'm sure there are football players who use questionable tactics to get under the skin of opponents, too, although none come to mind off the top of my head. One major difference is that there are players all over a soccer field, spread across a large area with limited officials. Thus, it's easy to get away with stuff and bait an opponent into retaliating ... and everyone knows that officials see the 2nd punch (or retaliating action) much more often than the 1st.

I'm sick of players acting like this. Usually, it's not the good players who do it because they don't have to. It isn't how sports should be and leagues need to start looking at the cause and effect, instead of just the effect. Fine, punish Zidane, but don't let Materazzi and people of his ilk skate unscathed.

---

Related:

• Anticlimax at the World Cup
• Hey FIFA!
• Wishing for un-"flop"-able officials
• An Eye for an Eye