Every four years, the World Cup dominates the soccer scene. It did so again last year, despite being a poor competition with little to offer in the way of outstanding play.

But it did come up with something excitingly new: a final featuring a spectacular head butt. The French captain, Zinedine Zidane, was the culprit as he smashed his head into the chest of Italian defender Marco Materazzi.

The photograph of the incident is doing the rounds, way beyond soccer circles, as one of the most dramatic images of 2006. It was hardly the sort of publicity the sport wanted — and it was made worse when Zidane was rather quickly transmogrified into a national hero, not least by the French government.

Given that Zidane’s ejection undoubtedly facilitated Italy’s victory, this was a strange turn of events. The problem for soccer was that there was an element of truth in viewing Zidane as a victim rather than as an aggressor.

Accusing fingers are now pointed at Materazzi, who was accused of provoking Zidane. He had impugned Zidane’s sister, or maybe his mother, or may his sexuality, or maybe his Algerian ancestry, or maybe he called him a terrorist. Or maybe all of those things. Trash talk, an accepted if not approved part of any soccer game for more than 100 years, now looms as a huge problem.

FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, did not help matters when he quickly commented that Zidane’s award — he had been voted Player of the Tournament, if you please! — might have to be rescinded. It was not. Instead, FIFA held a hearing and punished the already-retired Zidane with a meaningless three-game suspension and a fine.

But Materazzi, who had since admitted abusing Zidane verbally, had to be disciplined as well — with a fine and a two-game suspension — certainly the first time in World Cup history that a player has been punished for verbal aggression.

Soon enough, it was makeup time. Zidane apologized for his assault on Materazzi, Materazzi apologized to Zidane, and then there were T-shirts and videos and joke books, and a line of leisurewear. The Italian fashion designer responsible for the clothing said he wanted to turn Zidane’s “unsavory act” into a positive social message aimed at youngsters and at the same time offer a trendy product of high quality.

Just what FIFA would like to believe it has in soccer: a trendy product of high quality. But the 2006 World Cup showed a product of rather poor quality, and the Zidane fiasco proved yet again that FIFA is mulishly reluctant to confront the sport’s major problem.

This is a problem that goes back a long way, right to the days in 1863 when the seminal sport of football split into two versions, rugby and soccer. The split came over a practice known as hacking, or shinning — basically, it was kicking an opponent’s legs. The practice was banned, and its supporters walked out, declaring that the game had fallen into the hands of those who “like their pipes and grog and schnapps more than the manly game of football.”

That conflict — between those who wanted a game based on skill and those who preferred a more physical approach — has never been resolved. The pendulum has been swinging this way and that for nearly 150 years. At the moment it seems to have gotten stuck quite firmly in the physical camp. It is a situation that allows overtly rustic defenders like Materazzi to flourish and that has led to a game in which defenses dominate and goal scoring diminishes. The 2006 World Cup average of 2.3 goals a game was the second lowest ever of the 18 World Cups played since 1930. Caught up in the physical frenzy, exciting individual stars — the ball artists like Zidane — are likely to take a hammering every time they enter the field.

That is not supposed to happen. The sport has rules against excessive physical play and the referees are supposed to enforce them strictly. Yet when they try to do that, they are invariably criticized by coaches for being too severe. Not just by coaches: When Russia’s Valentin Ivanov handed out 16 yellow cards and ejected four players while trying to control the brutal Netherlands vs. Portugal kick-fest at the World Cup this summer, he was promptly criticized by Sepp Blatter himself!

If the ascendancy of the “manly game” proponents needed any underlining, it got it last week. Inevitably it came in England, where overly-vigorous tackling has long been the hallmark of a real player. On Saturday, Arsenal traveled north to play Sheffield United. It lost 0–1, with most of the commentators agreeing that Sheffield had simply been too physical for Arsenal, had intimidated them, and had knocked them out of their normal skillful, possession game.

Arsenal has a French coach, Arsene Wenger, and against Sheffield it had only one British player on the field. Sheffield is a club struggling to retain its place in the English Premier League — it does this by being a blue-collar team with mostly British players. A euphemism, of course. Sheffield rarely plays anything that looks like decent soccer and spends most of its time indulging in the good old British strength of “getting stuck in” — another euphemism.

The euphemisms disappeared in the 25th minute of the game when Sheffield’s captain, Chris Morgan, landed a sneaky punch into the ribs of Arsenal’s Robin van Persie. There was no action from the referee, who may not have seen the blow. But the television replays are quite clear.

There you have it. Van Persie, a highly talented forward, felled by a sucker punch from Morgan, a snarling Rottweiler of a player with little to offer other than determination and stamina. It was a perfect example of the sort of confrontation that now disfigures so much of the sport, in which inferior defenders know they are more than likely to get away with fouling a superior opponent.

Sheffield coach Neil Warnock — notorious for his lunatic behavior on the sidelines — then gave one of his calm and eminently articulate and reasonable television interviews in which he insisted quite cynically that nothing unruly had happened during the game. It was just all good, manly stuff.

What the sport awaits — critically needs — is firm action from FIFA to make sure referees enforce the rules against rough play. Will 2007 mark a swing of the soccer pendulum back toward a more skill-oriented game? A game in which players like Sheffield’s Morgan are simply not allowed to get away with mayhem at the expense of both the rules and the sport’s star players.

We’ve been waiting a long time for such a move from FIFA, so holding one’s breath is not recommended.

pgardner@nysun.com