Zinedine Zidane refused to reveal the "hard words" with which Marco Materazzi provoked him into the act of violence that brought the curtain down on his career during the World Cup final in Berlin on Sunday night.
But in his short interview with the French television station, Canal Plus, last night he left the world in no doubt that, in similar circumstances, he would do the same again.
"They were things that are very serious," he replied when invited to disclose the exact nature of Materazzi's insults.
"The words were very personal and they concerned my mother and my sister." The Italian had not used the word "terrorist", he said. "But they were very hard words. You hear them once and you feel bad. You hear it twice. Then you hear it a third time . .
"I'm a man, and I'm telling you that I would rather have been punched in the face than have heard those words. But I heard them, and I reacted."
The incident had begun, he said, when Materazzi grabbed his shirt.
"I told him to stop," Zidane said. "I said to him, 'If you want, we can swap shirts after the match'. He said some words that were very difficult to accept, and he repeated them several times."
As television replays showed, Zidane was walking away from Materazzi when he deliberately turned back to aim his head at the Italian's chest.
"I thought about what I was going to do," he said. "It was something that happened very quickly and that was it. My action was unforgivable," he said.
"It wasn't the right gesture to make. I say this aloud because two or three billion people saw it, and millions of children. I apologise to them, and to their teachers, the people who have to tell them about good behaviour.
"I have children myself, and I know what it's like. I will always tell them not to be taken advantage of, and to avoid this kind of situation."
But when asked if he regretted his decision to turn and butt Materazzi in the chest, Zidane was adamant.
"I can't regret it, because that would mean he was right to have said what he did."
He appeared unmoved by Fifa president Sepp Blatter's threat to strip him of the Golden Ball award for the best player at the World Cup.
"It's always the reaction that people talk about. Of course the reaction has to be punished. But if there had been no provocation, there would have been no reaction. If I reacted, it was because something occurred.
"Do you think that in a World Cup final, 10 minutes away from the end of my career, I would do a thing like that because it pleased me? Never. My action was unforgivable, but . . . the person who committed the provocation should also be punished."
He confirmed he had experienced no problems with Materazzi during his six years in Serie A in Italy.
"There's always tension between players, and there's bound to be tension in a World Cup final. But I'd never had arguments with Materazzi."
Zidane thanked the French public for their support over the incident.
"It was very touching," he said. "I could see that the people were there to support me."