I have watched four world cup finals now. This has easily been the most memorable. People from a generation earlier will compare it to the 1986 final and older generations will look back further. While there will be debate on this, we all will cherish having witnessed Italy win their 4th final.

A Dazed Henry and France 1-0 up

The first 10 minutes of the match was scrappy with Henry in pain and looking as if he had seen a ghost after the clash with Fabio Cannavaro. Henry returns to the field and people are relieved. The short period also saw Florent Malouda go down courtesy Marco Materazzi’s leg. Zidane scores from the penalty spot and it looks like deja vu 1998 with another Zidane goal.

An equaliser and Italian lobs

The Italians equalise with Marco Materazzi jumping higher than Vieira and with better timing. That is the story of the Italian strategy for the first half as well. We saw a lot of lobs with taller players being utilised, some thing Italians didn’t do as much before in the tournament. The Italians dominated possession and looked much more in command though we knew that a moment of inspiration could help win France win as well.

A sizzling second half

As the two teams saw that going into extra times or penalties would mean lesser control regarding the result of the match, they tried to press the issue. As a result, we saw some of the best football from the game. The Italian defense looked tight and if it was not them, Buffon always seemed inpenetrable. It was a question of which side will effect the perfect play for a world cup win. Goals didn’t look likely to be gifted and it was precious and yet attacking football with small but definite chances for both teams - the other team would just not let them capitalise those chances each time.

A flawed French strategy

The French got a lot of opportunities but kept missing the target or finding Buffon. I thought they missed a mark by going for long distance shots and shots direct towards the goal from free kicks and corners each time. You will always have one in a hundred chance to defeat Buffon from the long distance. The better way to go would have been shorter passes and going for goals from close range rather than at every opportunity. The best chance for the French certainly came that way when Ribery went that route once.

Brilliant Buffon

A superb shot from Henry saved and an almost perfect header from Zidane saved as well. How good a goal keeper has Buffon been this world cup? One of the best stories to come out of the world cup definitely.

The Zidane head butt in extra time

It was the 14th time Zidane got a red card in his career. A few words were definitely exchanged. BBC Five Live Sport’s Chris Waddle said this immediately after the incident:

“There was a lot of verbals going on. It takes a lot to upset Zinedine Zidane but he shouldn’t have reacted the way he did.”

Whether it takes a lot to upset Zidane or he has a short fuse is debatable. I don’t know and don’t want to know. I certainly do know that given that it was a world cup final, it would take some harsh comment to upset Zidane. I would like to know what Marco Materazzi said to Zidane and whether that was worthy of a red card as well. For, if players can be carded for protesting against referee calls, why shouldn’t they be carded if they have said some thing which is just not on to the other players?

Sportsmanship

Apart from this incident, the game was played in very good spirits - symbolic of which was the Buffon-Barthez hug before the penalties. The sportsmanship displayed at large is worth appreciating.

Six Inches short

The penalties couldn’t have been closer. The miss by David Trezeguet which rocketed after hitting the cross bar couldn’t have been closer. Every other of the nine penalty shots were hot on target perfectly despite the pressure and quality of goal keepers on display. That for me is a real indication of the quality of football we saw in this memorable final. The last shoot from fairly unknown soon the join Inter Milan Fabio Grosso makes him a hero. What were the odds on him scoring the goal that sealed the world cup before the world cup began!?

I won’t forget this final or the world cup for that matter. The whole tournament has been one for the ages. The final couldn’t have been more fascinating. One for the generations.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 3:06 am and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.