Football Karate

Even if you aren't a football fan, you must have seen the picture in the left for Zizo headbutt.
If you follow football daily, you might heard about Totti disgusting tackle and red card yesterday.
But, almost no one knows the picture in the bottom.
It is one of the funniest / ugliest incidents in Saudi league involving Rivelino (in white shirt) almost 28 years ago.

Totti red card:


This tackle was yesterday in the Italian cup final of Inter-Roma (1-0). The other player was Mario Balotelli,
an Italian striker originally from Ghana famous by Super Mario. God only knows what did he do or say to Totti, who is 14 years older than him. Not that Totti record is clean, but Balotelli record is so dirty. He just had a bad incident in the Semi Final vs. Barca two weeks ago. He gave a finger to Inter fans and threw his shirt in the ground. Matterazzi attacked him in the player tunnel that created so much criticism on Inter.

Rivelino red card:

Now, let's go 28 years ago, almost in 1978 or 1979 to Saudi field, in a game between Hilal and Ittihad, and let's watch the chase:



For clarification, Rivo (as Saudis used to call him) is in the white shirt chasing "Saad Break", a right back from Ittihad in the yellow one.

Now, let me analyze that:
- Zizo headbutt: press kept speculating a lot on what Matterazzi said to Zizo. Matterazzi had a black history, and a black future before/after this headbutt. So, apprantly, he said something too aweful to Zizo.


- Totti red card: Baletolli is following his teammate Matterazzi steps in the good manners. He might have said something to Totti that made him retaliate.


- Rivo: Rivo didn't speak English or Arabic. "Saad Break" didn't speak Portugese nor English. There is no way that they both had a conversation of any kind. This leaves with only one communication possibility "Body Language" :)

For the record, Rivo played next to Pele in 1970 scoring 3 goals to win the world cup. He gave the famous pass in the final to Pele. He played in 1974 and 1978 WCs and scored 3 more goals and was a clean player overall. (unlike Zidane and Totti who got a decent record of red cards).

What happened next?
Not sure if this incident happened in the same game, or after, but Rivo did a bad tackle to the exact same player. He was banned for few months on the local league after that, despite the fact he was playing to the most powerful team, that people think the soccer federation favors him.