World Cup news from Drew

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=sportsNews&storyID=2006-07-12T181633Z_01_L12760960_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SOCCER-WORLD-ZIDANE.xml

Now, as a general rule you will not see a lot of soccer news from me. In fact, that first sentence more than tripled the interest I have had in writing about, reading about, listening to, or thinking about soccer. To say I don't care about it is a gross understatement. Not as gross as flicking boogers on a windshield, but still pretty gross. In other words, I could say it 144 times.
Anyway, something about the World Snoozefest finally caught my attention. no, not the excitement when some team absolutely exploded for 3 goals in just one week. No, not when some team upset some other team and some heavy favorite lost (I am assuming those things happened). No, soccer finally got something right.
See, top players getting ejected from big games sometimes happens. Not as often as it should...Shaq fouled out of every game of the NBA Finals, the refs just didn't bother calling it...they DID, however, eject Jerry Stackhouse, suspended him for a game for a foul no more harsh than those Shaq lays on his defenders every game. But at least it LOOKED spectacular.
And pitchers have been run for plunking batters in the playoffs. They just got excited with their "purpose pitches" and nailed one guy too many. So that, at least, is justified. And of course in hockey you have guys waffling each other with sticks, pounding each other into rigid, unyielding boards...so losing their temper is sometimes justified.
So what does it take to get some guy I have never heard of but is apparently pretty famous and good (he did, after all, win the "best player of the tournament award"...wow, what a brilliant and interesting name THAT one has...) ejected from the single biggest game his sport has to offer?
"He (Materazzi) pronounced very tough words about my mother and my sister. I tried not to listen to him but he kept repeating them," Zidane said in a live interview."
Well done on preserving their honor. Hope it was worth it. What, you have never heard family insulted before? We are talking about a sport where fans are routinely killed in riots, where some chump got killed by his own fans for scoring a goal for the wrong team, where "known to be hard-core hooligans" is a phrase written about spectators with a straight face...I love that one so much I have to type it again..."known to be hard-core hooligans".
Seriously, in what other sport in the world can you classify fans like that? "Oh, over here we have the face painters. There in the corner are the chanters. The middle is the rioters and there in the back are the soft-core hooligans and there, coming in the gate are the HARD-CORE hooligans."
What moves you to "hard-core" hooligan? Is that like going pro? "I used to just be a hooligan, but then I picked up a couple sponsors...I am hard-core now."
Anyway, in this world of riots, killings, hard-core hooligans, in the most important game of the year, the game your country gets one shot at every four years, he loses his head because some other loser said some "very tough words" about your family?
Good thing soccer isn't ridiculous. Now if you will excuse me, I need to run along. I think some hard-core hooligans just noticed what I was saying and they are coming this way chanting some very tough words about my goats.