Should I write about Italy or about Zinedine Zidane? Or do I ignore the event in the France and Italy match that billions of viewers across the world watched? Italy was one of the worst of many strong teams to participate in the World Cup.
If the game was to end with a jury decision instead of penalty kicks, then all would have agreed that the World Cup is worthy of going to France and the French people. Zidane finished his legendary journey after paving the way for France to reach the final stages of the World Cup with a red card send-off.
Zinedine was born in a poor suburb in the port city of Marseilles in southeastern France on the Mediterranean coast. His father was an Algerian immigrant who ... became a national hero because of his son. If it was not for Zezou France would never have won the World Cup eight years ago and noticeably, if the referee had not kicked Zidane out of the game in the final match between Italy and France, the latter would have definitely won by penalty kicks.
People are mistaken if they think that success stories like that of Zidane’s can just happen by imitation. Before and after Zinedine, hundreds of thousands of football players have been born in the coastal and urban cities of France. Looking into their situation, I recall months ago when Paris and other major French cities, with huge urban ethnic minorities, were swept in fire and rage. Success stories remain exceptional.
Knowing or hearing other people’s success stories don’t necessarily mean that anyone else can simply repeat them by reading their curriculum vitae or biography.
Love poets are not going to automatically become new versions of Khalil Gibran, natural scientists aren’t going to become Ahmed Zowails just because they work in a laboratory in an American university and not every thinker is going to become a carbon copy of Edward Said and Haleem Barakat.
Success stories are always rare. Perhaps they are supernatural exceptions and it’s wrong for individuals to view them as ideas that can be cloned. Each success story has its distinctive circumstances and its own fate that can never be recurrent.
