Posted by Os Davis in all, soccer, Star Wars, video | 1 Comment
Le Coup de Boule vs. the Empire
With the 2010 World Cup final less than two hours away, Buck Bokai still can’t help thinking about Zinedine Zidane four years ago in what is certainly one of the most egregious exits from an international soccer career ever via Le Grand Coup de Boule, the headbutt of Marco Materazzi that got Zizou tossed in the second half of the 2006 championship match against Italy.
As Zidane was red carded out of the last match of his professional career, there came a moment as though produced out of Greek tragedy. Here’s the familiar video again; check out what happens at about 3:24 or so in this clip; just as the camera’s cutting away, Buck Bokai might add.
I mean, dude walks *right freaking past the World Cup trophy that France surely would’ve won had he stayed on the pitch*. Can you imagine such a moment happening in American sports? Like if Kobe Bryant got pitched for a double technical and the Los Angeles Lakers went down in Phil Jackson’s last-ever championship game seven by a couple of points? How many times do you think we’d’ve seen the clip? Would we still be talking about it four years later when the NBA Championship rolled around? You bet.
Luckily it seems Europeans are a bit saner about their pitch-side heroes.
Also luckily, Zidane was able to put his headbutting skills to good use in helping the Jedi/rebel cause against The Empire in one of the top two or three YouTubes ever. (It’s definitely on a level with this, perhaps the all-time classic in the subgenre.) The dark side is, however, strong in this one…