Zidane’s Head Butt and Other Irrational Phenomenon

When Zidane ‘head-butt’ (what was a noun is now a verb) Italian defender Materazzi during this year’s world cup soccer final, there was a collective groan of surprise among millions of viewers? and perhaps, the highest head-butts recorded in school playgrounds by kids who thought this was ‘cool’ new way of showing aggression!

Why the surprise? One may ask.

Zidane, the cool and collected playmaker, the architect of 1998 world cup ? never distressed in defeat, never exuberant in victory was perhaps too ‘cool’ for the game. It may not be inaccurate to say that Zidane thrived on ‘slowness.’ The startling example is (and what is lost in the media), what I term as the ‘stop-dash’ penalty kick that left the Italian goal keeper searching for fundamentals. That was a paradigmatic shift in taking penalties– don’t beat the goal keeper by speed, by power, by placement, but rather beat him through slowness. Coolness and slowness in the soccer field was in fact Zidane’s virtue because history tells us that when he originally applied to Algerian soccer team, he was denied a position for being considered ‘not fast enough.’

So, the question in all our minds is why would a cool and collected Zidane do a head-butt?

Even considering whatever Materaazzi blurted, it escapes the rationality. Much like cricket, soccer has always been a game of playing with the psyche and obscenities and swearing has always been a part of the game (don’t tell your kids though!). Was getting back at a player more important for Zidane than to isolate his fans? Was he personally offended to such a degree that he didn’t bother about the glory of world cup? Was he overwhelmed with the situation of his swan-song that it tragically had to end that way? Many questions linger. But none consoles.

Any of the above reasons could be true. But, perhaps, reasoning itself is a wrong thing to do. Consider the case of British actor Hugh Grant who was hit by a scandal after his encounter with a Hollywood prostitute.  When Grant was interviewed on Larry King Live, he said ‘I could accept some of the things that people have explained, ‘stress,’ ‘pressure,’ ‘loneliness’ — that that was the reason. But that would be false. In the end you have to come clean and say ‘I did something dishonorable, shabby and goatish.’

Perhaps our expectations of behavior in the contemporary society are a consequence of a culture that we have built around us. And when someone’s behavior does not fit into the pattern, we are perplexed.  Zidanes behavior does not fit into the behavior psychologist’s idea the ‘more you are rewarded, the more you do good.’ Neither does it fit into Russian rationalist Ayn Ryands’ explanation that even such emotions when questioned to its limits can be rational.  It seems that over-rationalizing the headbutt does not get into what really happens in our heads ? much like Arthur Koestlers’ term of ‘ghost in the machine.’ Zidanes head butt may in fact pose more questions about what is ‘in the head’ than what ‘he did with his head’ and why he did it.  Even if Zidane himself tries to rationalize it, we may never know what really went on in there.

The explanation, if ever there is one, could be closer to, what is termed in psychoanalysis as, the Freudian slips — an error in human action, speech or memory that is believed to be caused by the unconscious mind. But unlike Freud these slips may prove to be futile in analysis.  Take for example the rumor that Dale Carnegie, the author of self-help books such as ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living’ committing suicide?  Perhaps this is another rumor. But even if it were true, why should one be surprised? There is so much going on in the head that it defies explanation.

In Zidanes case, the mystery of the headbutt itself may perpetuate immortality.  Surely, Zidanes headbutt will be talked about in future years.  And we should not be surprised that Zidanes headbutt may be talked about perhaps as significantly, or even more so, than Einstein’s.

Author: Newton Dsouza- USA