Verbal abuses are common from both sides in such a competitive match like that, I guess. What I think is that something else caused Zidane doing such act: Zidnae, realizing that Italian defence is almost impossible to break, was already hopeless of scoring any more in the extra time. He already knew that it is harder to beat Buffon on the penalty shootout. Hopeless hopeless hopeless. and Materazzi was the one who equalized the scores and shattered French and Zidane's hope of wining in regular time, so Zidane got mad when he found that he just dealt with the very guy, then went ahead to head-butt Materazzi. My conclusion: French played exciting, they entertained the audiences as much as they could yesterday. On the other hand, Italian presented so defensive yesterday unlike previous matches. French really deserved the trophy for their wonderful play against Italy, however, it's soccer and the best team does not always win. Congratulations, Azzuris!!