As Tim noted (ironically Tim kicked off his Viewpoints career–and yes Tim, it will be a career–with an equally shocking editorial) Zidane seems to have picked up a new signature move in the 2nd overtime of the World Cup final (you can view the incident here). But the question is, what provoked the attack? What did Materazzi say? I’ve read a couple of reports on exactly what was said to Zidane to set him off. This seems like the type of slur that could have provoked the response:

Rumor has it that Materazzi called Zidane’s father a ‘harki’ – the Arabic term for Algerians who fought for France against Algeria during the occupation. It’s beyond all insults, the ultimate traitor.If this is true it means that they did their research – Le Pen suggested the same thing 9 years ago and in the next game Zidane stomped on a Saudi player who repeated it.

There are a couple of other rumors, well rounded up here. Apparently lip-readers can tell that Materazzi called Zidane’s sister a prostitute twice and he also said something else to Zidane that they can’t tell (perhaps hariki):

On the Sunday-night Globo show “Fantastico,” the lip-readers said that Materazzi uttered those words just after he and Zidane were tied up together, with Materazzi’s arm wrapped around Zidane from behind and perhaps giving what looked like a quick pinch to Zidane’s nipple. In addition to twice calling Zidane’s sister a prostitute, Materazzi, according to the lip-readers, also called Zidane an unspecified coarse word.

Also, there are rumors that Materazzi called him something to do with terrorism or a steroid scandal. Obviously, it doesn’t seem like there is anything conclusive out there yet.Regardless, if Materazzi said anything more than the prostitution slur, it would mean he did his homework, but that may not be all that shocking given his record (via TNR).