Last night, my friend watched a re-run of the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals between France and Italy. So today, he was excited to give me a commentary of the match, including the infamous Zinedine Zidane headbutt. But the commentary did not move past the fateful 110th minute since we spent the rest of the time just discussing the reasons that might have triggered Zidane’s unexpected behavior.

Having prior knowledge of the headbutt, my friend was keen to observe the circumstances that Zidane was operating under throughout the match. He concluded was that the player appeared tired from physical exertion in addition to being frustrated by the play in the field.

When a person is under considerable stress, he or she consciously or unconsciously looks for an opportunity to vent the pressure. In such circumstances, the end is so important that the means often become secondary, and might not always be acceptable to the person or to those around him or her. For example, in the common case that we are all familiar with of stress at the workplace; the Boss might end up quarrelling the subordinates, a spouse might be unkind to his or her partner, and a parent might become impatient with his or her children. All these undesirable behaviors might be uncalled for, and hence leave the victim feeling hurt and confused and the aggressor feeling guilty and angry. The guilt would be as a result of the misdeed and the anger would be directed to self for lack of constraint.

I suppose that one of the things that puzzle many people is the reason why Zidane lost his cool during the most significant game in his career. Wasn’t it unpardonably stupid? I suppose the importance of this game, plus the fact that the expectations of a whole nation, not to mention millions of soccer fans around the world lay on his shoulders, only added to the pressure he was under. If all the players were balloons at a child’s birthday party, Zidane would have been the biggest, most colorful and most conspicuous. When you were a kid, perhaps you noticed that it was only the biggest and most beautiful balloon that popped for no apparent reason? Did you also notice that it made an unexpectedly loud clapping sound, startling everyone? Of course you now know that the reason is because the more pressure there is in a balloon, the easier it is to pop, and the louder the sound it makes on bursting. Clearly, it would be unfair to dismiss Zidane’s headbutt as just another case of being buttheaded.

Everyone has a button that when pressed could result in a fit of stark, raving, mad rage. If that button is pressed when a person is not ‘himself’ or ‘herself’ ‘” say when a person is drunk, or depressed, or stressed ‘” the results are not often pleasant. For example, every guy knows just what depths of insanity a ‘your mother’ insult could stir when delivered when one is drunk ‘” even by a best friend. And yet, the same joke might be taken with just mild discomfort under different circumstances. Given the right mix of circumstances, the most coy and puny would take on a WWF wrestler resulting in perhaps another monumental song in the league of ‘Coward of the county’ by Kenny Rogers.

‘Coward of the county’ is a country song about a young man ‘” Tommy – whose father had died in prison. Before his demise, the father made Tommy promise to stay out of trouble, by avoiding doing the things that his old man had done. Since the age of ten, Tommy had kept the promise until the day when a group of local toughies took advantage of his girlfriend named Becky. When Tommy found Becky crying after the ordeal, he went to confront the gang, but found himself incapable of doing anything. At the face to face encounter with the gang, his father’s reasoning prevailed and he decided to walk away from trouble. But then, one of the boys made a grave mistake: As Tommy walked away, he taunted loudly, ‘Hey! Look old yellow’s leaving!’? With that, Tommy froze half way across the room, turned around with fire in his eyes and a crazed look on his face. In an unexpected fit of fury, Tommy sprinted across the room and lunged his whole self on the bullies with kicks, blows, bites and headbutts. By the time he was done, none of the bullies was standing. And as he gained his composure after the orgy of violence, Tommy boldly said to the voice of his father, ’sometimes you’ve got to fight when you are a man!’?

When anger takes over and we find ourselves in situations that we had not planned to be in, we should lay aside our pride and apologize. That kind of humility is what would be required for an employer to apologize to his employee, a partner to say ‘I am sorry’ to the other partner, or a parent to ask for forgiveness from a child. A sincere apology to those we have wronged elicits understanding from them. This is especially important since we so badly need them to do so. Apart from that, we should continue asking for and receiving joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit promised in Galatians 5 in the Christian’s New Testament Bible.