Over 1 billion people around the globe, and 69,000 people in a German stadium, looked on in disbelief as the French team Captain in the World Cup Football Final committed an act of sheer madness. Zinedine Zidane, was playing the final minutes, of the final match in his professional career, when he violently headbutted his Italian opponent, Materazzi, and got sent off in disgrace. What should have been, win or lose, his moment of professional glory has instead gone down in history as his moment of shame - one which will haunt him forever.
Many of the headlines gracing newspapers and media reports across the World on the subject include the words 'an act of lunacy.' And from an astrological perspective, indeed it was. The word lunacy comes from the Latin word for the Moon, Luna.
Zinedine or 'Zizou' as he is affectionately known was born on June 23, 1972 in Marseilles, France. Not only is he a lunar ruled, Cancerian but his Mercury and Mars also occupy the sign. His Moon is in the water sign of Scorpio in mutual reception with his Mars, therefore acting as final dispositer for his Sun. In other words this is one highly emotional man. My guess would be that the inflammatory comments of Materazzi must in some way have been directed either at Zidane's family, or his nationality, for no other planetary placements are more hypersensitive, defensive and reactive to this type of personal insult than these.
With the Sun, Moon and Mars linked in this way his normally controlled, enigmatic, family-man persona belies an aggressive, impulsive streak which can appear to emerge suddenly but which, on closer examination, is invariably linked to the lunar cycles. A connection between weather patterns, tidal rhythms and menstrual cycles have long been recognised and accepted as part of the close relationship between the Sun, Earth and its satellite, the Moon. Less widely recognised however are the other stresses and effects on the human body that the lunar phases exert.
The word 'lunatic' is defined as such because it was once noticed that insanity was brought about by the changing phases of the Moon. Hospitals know that admissions rise significantly around the time of the Full Moon due to an increase in emotionally driven incidents. Surgeons appreciate that blood take longer to coagulate at the time of the Full Moon and some avoid operating. Law enforcement officers know that a significant rise in arrests for violent disputes occur in 29 day cycles.
So, can Zidane excuse his behaviour by blaming the decision of FIFA to stage the World Cup Final less than 36 hours before a Full Moon - I think not. And neither should people who possess close links between the Sun, Moon and Mars in their charts be fearful that they might suddenly headbutt someone one day! No, to explain, but not excuse, Zizou's behaviour we have to see the Moon for what it is - a cyclical trigger for impulses which at other times might lie dormant or find positive, rather than negative expression in his life. Just as when he headbutted his opponent in Turin on 24 October 2000, transiting Venus was again in close aspect with transiting Pluto at the time of this match. These two planets link in with Zidane's Moon and were themselves in a tense alignment at the time of his birth.
The position of the Cup Final's transiting Moon (and that of 2000) in relationship to the planets in his horoscope alert us to a flashpoint. With the aid of astrological advice, Zidane could have been warned that he was more susceptible to acting on his propensity to 'lose it.' Forearmed with that information he might have been able to arrest his emotional reactions and perhaps have altered the course of World Cup history. In this way he would have been truly collaborating with his fate, rather than being a victim of his periodic 'lunacy'.
