OpEdNews - Diary: Explain That to AYSO, Zidane

Zidane let down not only the world's soccer youth, but all of Islam.

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Zinedine Zihane's understated masterpiece of a penalty kick in the World Cup notwithstanding, his vicious head-butt to Italian defender Marco Materazzi spelled disaster for France. So what if Materazzi, who's penchant for crudeness was well-known, called Zidane's wife a puttana or something. Was that worth throwing the World Cup out the window? It was also a slap in the face to worldwide soccer youth, especially in the US, where AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) has become as entrenched as Little League. Tell the kids how another player called your wife a whore, Zidane. Meanwhile, it's got to be galling to soccer how the World Cup only fuels America's sense of its own exceptionalism. Can you imagine Michael Jordan cold-cocking John Stockton in the closing minutes of one of the Bulls two championships against the Jazz? We already look down on the French for their supposed duplicitousness and laugh at the Italians for what we perceive as their antics. Perhaps worst of all, while Zidane describes himself as a "non-practicing Muslim," nevertheless, according to Wikipedia, his first name, Zinedine, means "Ornament of the Faith" in Arabic; his family name: "Increases or Grows the Faith." After bin Laden, he's probably the most famous Muslim in the Western World. Whether or not Muslims interpret Zidane's act as a legitimate expression of asymmetric warfare, it's yet another embarrassment for the Muslim world.