{"id":16311,"date":"2026-11-12T19:00:49","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T19:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/de-miguel-death-made-me-thank-god-over-zidane-headbutt-materazzi\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T19:00:49","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T19:00:49","slug":"de-miguel-death-made-me-thank-god-over-zidane-headbutt-materazzi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/de-miguel-death-made-me-thank-god-over-zidane-headbutt-materazzi\/","title":{"rendered":"De Miguel death made me thank God over Zidane headbutt \u2014 Materazzi"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"937\" height=\"612\" src=\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/De-Miguel-death-made-me-thank-God-over-Zidane-headbutt-\u2014-Materazzi.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"De Miguel death made me thank God over Zidane headbutt \u2014 Materazzi\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/De-Miguel-death-made-me-thank-God-over-Zidane-headbutt-\u2014-Materazzi.jpg 937w, https:\/\/cdn.vanguardngr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Materazzi-e1794509704479-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/cdn.vanguardngr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Materazzi-e1794509704479-768x502.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 937px) 100vw, 937px\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Adegboyega Adeleye<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Italy defender Marco Materazzi says the death of Spanish striker Jesus de Miguel after an on-field collision made him reflect on the headbutt he suffered from Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Materazzi said the incident, one of football\u2019s most infamous World Cup moments, still troubled him 20 years later. He told Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport that De Miguel\u2019s death made him grateful he had escaped serious injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe death of Jesus de Miguel made me thank God that nothing had happened to me,\u201d Materazzi said in an interview published on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">De Miguel, a Tenerife striker, died after colliding with Andorra goalkeeper Jesus Owono during a Segunda Division match earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zidane, then captain of France, was sent off for headbutting Materazzi in the chest during the 2006 final, which Italy won on penalties. Zidane, now France coach, said last month he was not proud of the headbutt but did not regret it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Materazzi said he and Zidane appeared to put the episode behind them when they met before a match in 2010, although Zidane later disputed Materazzi\u2019s account of the encounter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen he saw me, he hesitated a little, he even turned to walk back,\u201d Materazzi said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBut I approached him and shook his hand: \u2018I\u2019m glad we\u2019re meeting here, where nobody can see us.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe replied: \u2018Don\u2019t worry, these things happen, it\u2019s all in the past.\u2019 It\u2019s a shame he later denied everything, saying he thought I was a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">France are scheduled to play Italy in the Nations League later on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanguardngr.com\/2026\/11\/de-miguel-death-made-me-thank-god-over-zidane-headbutt-materazzi\/\">De Miguel death made me thank God over Zidane headbutt \u2014 Materazzi<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanguardngr.com\/\">Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Source: <\/p>\n<div class=\"nSourse\">Vanguard News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adegboyega Adeleye Former Italy defender Marco Materazzi says the death of Spanish striker Jesus de Miguel after an on-field collision made him reflect on the headbutt he suffered from&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}