It does matter! But not for the game itself. Zidane made an intentional error. He got the red card. France lost. That's everything ok. He deserved the red card. That's how the game goes. But further investigations should be made. What they will show won't have any effect on the championship. It will only affect the public opinion against Zidane, Materazzi, the World Cup and FIFA. And football. And what Italy's championship is worth.

I would rather see bullying of the referee and diving/pretending to be fouled outlawed first.

Italy is too important as a soccer market. They will never do that. Especially with an European as the president of the FIFA. The punishment is in Italian hands, so most likely he will have to pay some euros and done.

Another interesting thing is that apparently the referees decided to show Zidane a red card after seeing a replay of the incident. According to FIFA rules this is not allowed. If the French appealed, the game could theoretically have to be played again.

A similar thing happened in the Croatia-Australia game when Joe Šimunić got 3 yellow cards, but the Croats didn't appeal.

At least we still have something to talk about now. This whole Zidane story is turning out to be more interesting than the actual final match itself.

The problem with lip readers is that they guess in their native languages An argentinian one thought he said "Shitty Zidane" I believe "terrorist" is the most exact one, Materazzi pronounced (for me) a single word.

By the way, from what I know in the field they get the same signal as the wall screens inside the stadium, and they can't repeat any controversy like faults, offsides, etc, so the spanish referee could not have seen that.

The same we saw here, but if you pay attention, as Zidane is going Materazzi says something that makes Zidane stop and walk towards him.

Roughly trasnlated... "sale terroriste" is "dirty terrorist". Materazzi denies saying "i don't even know what this word means". The "l'organisation SOS Racisme" demanded FIFA look into the circumstances that provocated him.

Italy defames itself well enough, unluckily, unless all that stuff about bribes, bets and such in the local tournament are false.

Though I admit I have heard he had done a couple of things like this before. I don't watch European soccer, too boring

Didn't some players who have been accussed of these movements played the World Cup as well?

I believe the FIFA is investigating some Australian players who have stated they have done bets for the World Cup too.

(Edited: Another:

http://www.strangereaction.com/imagehost/albums/userpics/10205/Zidane_Super_Move.gif

Roughly translated...
We're gonna get an answer in a couple of days, promised according to his Agent. His agent said he said something very serious but he's not sure what yet. "He's normally a man who lets things pass over but something sunday night made him explode". Zizou is dissapointed and sad. He didn't want it to end like that.

That's narrow minded of you Rey..

That must be because I am not used to watch matches where the public is sat down, drinking and eating, or with children or babies. Down here, you spend the match swinging your t-shirt above your head, shouting for your team and against the other... when there is a goal, you see a human avalanche running from top to bottom, you in the middle running with everyone else even if you don't want... the players when converting jump above the advertisments and climb the net that surrounds the field, and you climb the other side and shout together, up above it...

What looks civilized for you, is boring for me. What looks barbaric for you, looks entertaining for me