>>>>It's not different. Any player in a professional sport who can be taunted into causing his own eviction will be. It's part of every professional contact sport. After all these years, I'd have thought he'd learned that. Whether it's a punch, a kick, or a head butt, it is a stupid and, especially in such a crucial situation, inexcusable act.
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>>>It was not long ago that insulting another's honor, family, city or country would lead to a duel. Such insults should also be inexcusable.
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>>Yeah, but come on Mike. This is professional sports where large dollars are involved. In pro sports, whatever you can get away with treated as part of the game. Doing something so obviously stupid and getting yourself ejected in a tied world championship game is way beyond unacceptable. He wasn't just hurting himself, but also all of his teammates, and that's truly where it goes over the line.
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>A couple of things to ponder:
>a) [just as a fact to keep in mind] ZZ had a history of short temper and head butts.
>b) he had already resigned to end his pro career after the game. Less worries for his pro career...
>c) When you are pushing yourself physically over your body limits, sometimes strange things happen to your mind
>d) He probably *would* have gotten away with it if rules had been strictly followed, as no referee did call it right after happening! The call happened later, and some suspect it was made after watching a rerun, which is against the rules for referee decision AFAIK.
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>The checks and balances of football have a large dosage of random elements, which can decide the game if the teams are almost equal as the last 4 were. Assuming a strategically taunted ZZ and breaking the referee rules by watching a rerun after the fact, I don't know which decision would have been better.

You could be right. I don't know exactly how the play was called. I do know it took a few minutes. What I don't know is whether it was called after watching a re-run, or if it was eventually called from the sideline, or whatever. It was called though, and admittedly, I'm not real clear on all the soccer rules, but in the context of most other professional contact sports, I don't recall anyone getting a penalty for insulting an apponent.

Let's put this in a better context. Suppose Jackie Robinson had acted that way whenever he was insulted (and let's face it, the insults he had to put up with were pretty gruesome). How far would he have gotten? His response was the right one. "I'm not going to beat you up, I'm just going to beat you." His tormentors didn't eat fist, they ate crow. Which one hurts more?