1. transcript
  2. How the World Cup was Decided

How the World Cup was Decided

By apalazzo on July 10, 2006.

Wow, the events of yesterday are still bouncing around in my brain. Lots of dodos are blaming Zidane for the loss. Give me a fxxking break. Zidane was sent off with 10min to go and no gas left. If it was anyone's fault, blame Trezeguet who missed his penalty kick. To me the key moment was a couple of minutes earlier when Zidane ALMOST scored. Remember, it's the second half of OT after a long month, everyone is exhausted and out of nowhere Zidane, one of the oldest players in the tournament, plays a "one-two" splitting the Italian defense. This is capped with a header to the Italian goal, shades of the 1998 final. It's Zidane, the great magician, against Buffon, the best living goalkeeper. If it goes in, Zidane becomes a God, if Buffon saves it, he becomes a God slayer.

Buffon wins, and Italy win the World Cup.

I will post one last WC entry soon and then it's back to science.
Previously: Bittersweet End to the World Cup

Update: Zidane won the Golden Ball as best player of the tournament. And as a fan of Italy, I applaud that choice.

From the Fifa website:

France playmaker Zinedine Zidane won the adidas Golden Ball voted for by journalists at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany.

Although his team ultimately failed in their bid to lift the Trophy, Les Bleus' No.10 won the vote for the best player to grace the world stage in Germany. Behind Zizou came Italy's defensive rock Fabio Cannavaro, with the Juventus defender's Azzurri team-mate Andrea Pirlo completing the podium.

After a less than impressive showing from France in the group phase, Zidane finally got into gear against Spain in the Round of 16, producing a virtually flawless performance to steer his side to a famous win and a place in the last eight.

If there is such a thing as footballing perfection, the midfield maestro surely attained it in the quarter-final showdown with Brazil. His superb passes, magical feints and all-round inspiration took France into the last four, where a solid performance and a clinical penalty helped Les Bleus dispose of Portugal.

In the Final against Italy, he opened the scoring with an audacious spot-kick. Despite his tireless prompting, however, Zidane was unable to pick up the second FIFA World Cup winner's medal of a glittering career and was sent from the field in extra time for butting Marco Materazzi in the chest.

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It's too bad Zidane couldn't put that one in the corner, but either way, Buffon made a brilliant save. Congrats to Italy. I still want to know what Materazzi said to Zidane to incite the head-butt. Sports psychologists should be analyzing this one for decades.

I love this guy!

That is really sad/funny. Poor guy, I hope his lifetime achievements outlives these 2 seconds of shame.

On a brighter note here's a good article on Zidane from the London Times:

Always severe and serious, but with that strange sense of detachment. It was as if he were well aware of the absurdity of football and, for that matter, of life. All the same, he could still see no point in giving these absurdities anything less than his best. He played with a wonderfully Gallic sense of cool, as if he had a Gitanes in his mouth even as he turned, swivelled and passed.
But it was not what he did that was the key to his greatness, it was what he was. It was his presence that made the fin de siecle France team the greatest in the world, one of the greatest ever. You can?t win the World Cup without a proper striker, they said. You can if you?ve got Zidane in your team, with his conductor?s baton and his slide rule and his falconine profile and his Gitanes ablaze. And just to prove that it was no fluke, he led the France team to victory in the European Championship two years later.

I agree, Buffon's save was extremely important, as was the ref decision not to award a penalty for Zambrotta's challenge on Malouda in the 53rd min. But I'm not bitter! ;)

Anyway, I can't justify what Zizou did but I can say that he is generally a very nice guy - there was a documentary on him release a couple of months ago (in french of course)that shows him as a very nice, humble kinda guy. Oh well, I for one won't excuse him, but neither will I let it detract from remembering what an incredible player he was...