"Et por quoi?! ET POR QUOI?!?!"

In other news, the World Cup final delivered a satisfying conclusion. No, not because one of my countries of ancestry won the cup and not because we didn’t see Brazil win again (thank God), but rather because this game contained possibly the most hysterical, bizarre, inexplicable yet strangely fitting climax I’ve seen in a while: the Zinedine Zidane headbutt.
I mean, let’s be serious here – Zinedine Zidane is one of the greatest soccer players of at least the past twenty years. He delivered France its only World Cup title eight years ago and was on the verge of doing it again, this time with a French team no one thought had a chance to get out of group play, much less score a goal at one point. And I mean, we see people come up short in situations like this. Look at the World Series last year – Biggio and Bagwell had sentiment on their side and the Astros had battled through the postseason only to be embarrassed by Bobby Jenks’ fastball and a light-hitting outfielder who suddenly thought he was Reggie Jackson. Or take Karl Malone’s last hurrah with the Lakers. Things don’t always have storybook endings. Look at Michael Jordan’s second comeback or Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath’s ignonimous career endings (for the record, I’m talking about Namath’s year with the LA Rams, not his decidedly one-sided 2003 sideline tryst with Suzy Kolber; though this incident did make Suzy Kolber strangely attractive to me in spite of the fact that she talks like a wrestling announcer).
But Zidane’s headbutt is beyond any of this. His international career doesn’t simply end with a loss, which is how these things usually go. No, Zidane’s career ended in the same fashion as Joe Theismann’s (though the only way Zidane’s headbutt would have been as traumatic as that horrific scene would’ve been if Materrazi’s heartbeat had been interrupted and he had died on the field) – in an utterly unforgettable spectacle akin to an on-field supernova.
This whole scene reminded me a lot of what ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote when he previewed this year’s Spurs-Kings opening round playoff series. Simmons said that he expected the series to go seven games, but that the Kings would ultimately come up short in the seventh game. He said this would likely happen after Ginobili flopped while guarding Artest, followed by Artest helping him up and then body-slamming him to the floor without changing his expression at all. When you think about it, this is exactly what Zidane did in a lot of ways.
Watch the video – Zidane’s expression never changes the entire time (even when Mazterrazi appears to give him a titty-twister), and the way in which he goes about the attack is just exceedingly non-chalant.
Here’s something else to chew on – precisely how were these two communicating. I mean, here you have a Frenchman and an Italian – I highly doubt that Zidane was speaking Italian, and I don’t think Materrazi would even attempt to speak French. In that case, this means that this entire exchange was probably carried out in extremely broken English. I like to imagine Materrazi, in a thick Italian accent, gesturing his hands wildly and saying something like “YOU-A DIRTY ALGERIAN, I FUCK-A YOUR MOTHER” while Zidane calmly mutters “Sacre Bleu” (in the same tone as Napoleon in the water slide in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and rams his forehead into Materrazi’s sternum.
I don’t see why people are surprised that Zidane did this, either. This is the same guy who stomped on a Saudi Arabian player during a World Cup match in 1998 for no apparent reason.
A lot of people are probably going to say that this headbutt sullies Zidane’s legend in some way. I don’t really see it that way. Look at it like this: The average person doesn’t know who Ron Artest is because of his basketball playing ability; there are players who play similarly to Artest, and these aren’t the kind of players who are typically household names. However, people know Artest because of this, for Christ’s sake.
The average person in America doesn’t give a rat’s ass about soccer, even when the World Cup is on. They’re not going to remember who won, even if it’s the United States (and something tells me that in the bizarre parallel universe where this has actually occurred, people still care more about the Red Sox and Yankees playing chicken with bullpen carts). But I’ll guarantee you one thing – they’ll sure as hell remember the crazy guy who headbutted an opponent in the chest.

"Yes!!!"

I feel bad for kids growing up today and watching the NBA. No, not because they didn’t get to see Michael Jordan play in his prime and no, not because the NBA is the most boringly predictable league in all of professional sports. You might think baseball is boringly predictable with the dominance of the Yankees, but since 1980, 18 different teams have won the World Series. In the same period in the NBA, 8 different teams have won a title.
This isn’t why I feel bad for kids, however. I feel bad for them because they don’t get to hear the greatest song ever composed by man play during telecasts.
That’s right – John Tesh’s “NBA on NBC” theme song is the single greatest musical composition that man has ever created. Nothing the Beatles, Elvis, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan or Marvin Gaye ever recorded can come close to touching this song.
So why does John Tesh beat out all of these formidable musicians? Well, that’s easy.
The “NBA on NBC” theme was easily the greatest “get-pumped-up” song ever written. I have never heard anything more effective at any level. Yes, not even Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” This song could get you excited for some total crap matchup. Pat Riley’s mugging, dirty Knicks against the methodically boring Utah Jazz? Ugh! Then the theme song comes on…and suddenly you’re legitimately excited by the thought of an 82-75 final score. Seriously, this song even got me excited for Game 5 of the 1997 Lakers-Jazz series where 18-year-old Kobe Bryant got his first taste of failure as he hoisted airball after airball in a losing cause (as oddly metaphorical for Bryant’s personality and career trajectory as the entire “Pinkerton” album was for Rivers Cuomo. Downright eerie).
Hearing this song conjures up countless images for me. Jordan’s “final” shot against the Jazz, Reggie Miller’s playoff heroics, the Portland Trailblazer collapse in the 2000 Western Conference Finals, the Suns-Bulls Finals…it never ends.
Of course, with the coming of digital music players, its now possible to listen to this song at any time of the day, anywhere you go. This opens up a whole new can of worms.
Lately, I’ve been walking to campus and class listening to the “NBA on NBC” theme. And let me tell you, it’s like downing twelve Red Bulls in 5 minutes and snorting a bunch of No-Doz for good measure (or, if you prefer, like having 5 consecutive Jager Bombs and playing Broom Ball. Not that I’d know anything about that). You are WIRED.
I walk through crowds on Bruin Walk as this music plays, getting all manner of ridiculous thoughts in my head. As I come up on a slow-walking group of girls, I imagine that they’re a bunch of Pistons defenders and that I must drain fadeaway jumpers over them. I get the uncontrollable desire to set moving screens, particularly on guys who fly down the hill on skateboards. If I’m late for a class, suddenly I have a sense of urgency, as I must drive the lane in crunch-time and hope for a three point play (With Marv Albert saying in my ear,“To the basket…..YES!!!!!”).
I even had a ritual during this year’s NBA Finals where I would mute the volume on my TV and blast this song through our crappy speakers. It really made the games (which I was pretty excited for anyway) that much better.
Why can’t ABC bring this song back? Hell, buy the rights from John Tesh, or NBC, or whoever the hell owns it. Look at it this way – last year, Al Michaels got traded from ABC to NBC for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a Disney character from way back when that NBC Universal still owned the rights to. If the man who asked whether we believe in miracles can be traded for some shitty cartoon, why the hell can’t ABC get the rights to the song I want played at my wedding, my children’s weddings AND my funeral?