There's a long and ignoble tradition of hurling cheap insults on the sports field, writes Shane Hegarty
Zinedine Zidane found an opponent's jibes too much to take last weekend, but if a quick burst of insults was enough to make him lose his head, then there are plenty of sports where he wouldn't last five minutes.
There is a long, if ignoble, history of unsportsmanlike conduct in many disciplines. On any given weekend, players in parks across the world are jibing, taunting, intimidating and generally slagging off each other. In some sports, notably cricket, it's considered almost integral to the game. And mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives and children are not always considered off-limits.
Cricketers call it "sledging" - the deliberate winding up of an opponent - and some sportsmen even train to cope with it. Before a match against Wales last year, the England rugby player Charlie Hodgson practised kicking while team-mates yelled personal abuse at him, to mimic the pressure he would be under from opponents and fans.
The English had suffered from it before, when in 2004 the Irish team is said to have targeted their hooker Steve Thompson with taunts about his infamously wayward throwing skills. He had a terrible match, and Ireland won.
In the old days, there was a lot more talk in rugby scrums than there is now, when the breath needs to be saved for pushing, but in American football players facing off against each other have a little bit more time to chat. There is the story of one player who taunted an opponent by slowly revealing the digits of his girlfriend's phone number.
Meanwhile, the extremely competitive world of college football led to a row between two teams last year, after Duke University players, with supreme cockiness, sneered that the Florida State students would one day be working for them.
The Americans call it "trash-talking", and it's prevalent in basketball, with complaints that there are too many coaches actively teaching their players how to come up with a cutting one-liner on the court rather than a winning move. But any professional player who started on the street is well hardened to the kind of personal trash talk, made famous in the film White Men Can't Jump, in which the reputations of family members are repeatedly questioned.
Professional players tend to be more refined. Charles Barklay once asked a particularly religious player, "AC, if God is so good, how come he didn't give you a jump shot?" Another, Gary Payton, was keen on reminding opponents of his wealth. "That's why I earn twelve million!" he would yell after scoring.
Soccer hasn't so much of a history of witty remarks, although in one match earlier this year, Celtic captain Neil Lennon was accused of taunting another player about his superior earnings. "This happens in any team sport," his manager Gordon Strachan said. "In cricket they call it sledging, in rugby union it's just abuse and winding people up and it goes on."
But it is cricket which is most renowned for having witty repartee between opponents that is often more entertaining than the game itself.
Usually, it is ability that is targeted. The bowler Greg Thomas once mocked batsman Vivian Richards after he had swung at a ball and missed, sneering: "It's red and it's round. Can't you see it?" When Richards smashed the next ball out of the grounds, he said to the bowler, "You know what it looks like - go get it!"
On another occasion the Australian Shane Warne said to Daryll Cullinan of South Africa: "I've been waiting two years to humiliate you again." To which Cullinan replied: "Looks like you spent the time eating."
But occasionally it carries a tinge of nastiness that would have the sensitive Zidane head-butting his way through an entire innings. Famously, Australian wicket-keeper Rod Marsh once asked English batsman Ian Botham: "So how's your wife and my kids?"
However, it is not always as juicy as some might hope. Australian Glenn McGrath is often quoted as having asked Zimbabwean Eddo Brandes why he was so fat, with Brandes replying that it was because every time he made love to McGrath's wife she gave him a biscuit. But McGrath says it never actually happened. Zidane will be glad to hear it.