Lip readers have speculated for months as to what he actually said; Materazzi himself sets out two hundred versions in a specially published booklet; the actual words remain a mystery.
Let us look, however, at a broader picture. The well-deserved red card was the last thing Zidane saw in his professional career as a player. The 2006 World Cup was the last for Oliver Kahn and Luis Figo. Francesco Totti is not going to play for his national side any more; David Beckham is unlikely to be fit for the next one either. Many great players of the past decade bid their farewell to the game at the 18th World Cup.
Russia was not represented, which was probably a good thing for two reasons. Firstly, our players did not deserve it; secondly, neither did our fans. Our last away qualifier in Bratislava ended up in streetfights with the locals, so Russia's failure to elbow its way past Slovakia and others to Germany was probably the only thing our side should be credited with. Without the Russian fans, the World Cup passed relatively uneventfully, with only one documented - but very quickly and efficiently neutralized - outbreak of street violence in the run-up to Germany vs. Poland Group A fixture.
More peaceful, if not always sober, fan action was carefully and successfully managed with the help of "Fanfeste" - specially devised reservations within which - for the first time in the World Cup history, God bless Germany for this - fans could do what they wanted.
Apart from football, there was much this World Cup will be remembered for: Dutch "orange revolutions" in Hamburg and Frankfurt, kangaroo dances in Munich and Kaiserslautern in support of the Australian Socceroos, English "beer squares" in Nuremberg and Cologne, crowds painted Swiss, Ukrainian, Ivorian, Mexican... By some accounts, fan action even overshadowed players' performance - which is important because clearly not everyone adept at near-football street shows could afford a trip to the World Cup - the Brazilian Samba Team was, in fact, 90% white.
The Germans used the World Cup to launch an all-out PR offensive (it could have been far more "all-out" with the help of the country's two million Turks, if only Turkey, the 2002 World Cup third place winner, had passed through the qualification), involving even Angela Merkel, the Bundeskanzlerin, who seemed to turn up at several stadiums simultaneously, and Pope Benedict XVI, who could as well publish his accounts of how he had supported the German side, watching the World Cup on his black-and-white TV. Almost all German newsmakers have been filmed boozing and dancing with fans in the streets.
As the German team progressed, the locals' expectations grew exponentially, and those who had chastised the new manager Jurgen Klinsmann for ruining national football in the run-up to the event, now ached to see him tarred and feathered if he did not win the title. Klinsmann revealed a true coaching talent, and won the third place - with a little help from referees, but they were the hosts, right? This did seem the right reward for his last-minute effort.
Unpleasant surprises, unfortunately, were also in abundance. Star-laden England, arguably with the strongest roster in the past 15 years, had come with the highest hopes since 1970 which were eliminated - by all accounts, deservedly - in the quarterfinals, having squeezed through the 1/8 almost exclusively because of Beckham's marvelous free kicks.
The Brazilians, having found themselves in a very comfortable group from the start, had not even gained much momentum when the French curbed their pentacampeonic arrogance. Brazil's elimination came as yet another reminder that in a world of fast-changing football life, the World Cup is still the central but by no means decisive football event any longer. The Euro, for instance, is quite as well-played and highly motivating, and the title in today's world goes to a team that is better motivated and more fit and disciplined right now, at the moment, rather than generally and in theory.
This time, the Italian motivation could not have been stronger. In the wake of the game-fixing scandals in Serie A, which stripped Juventus of the Scudetto - Juve was also relegated, its sporting director Gianluca Pessotto tried to commit suicide, and AC Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio began the next season with negative points, - almost every man in the Italian national side felt their reputation was at stake. They won and became the second team in history to take the World Cup four times.
And yet, six months after the Cup, Materazzi's words seem to be the only thing most are wondering about.
Mikhail Melnikov is a commentator for the Russian satellite TV network NTV Plus
