An unbelievable ending to the World Cup. Zinedine Zidane, probably the best player of our generation, is red-carded in the last game of his career in the finals of the World Cup, with the game tied 1-1, in the 110th minute. I have been trying to think if I’ve ever seen a stranger event in sports, where a player of his caliber so completely lost his mind in such an important setting. Nothing springs to mind.
I’ve frankly been astonished at the reaction that I’ve read from people, ranging from apologism for Zidane to anger at the Italians for provoking him. First of all, we have no idea what was said, and the knee-jerk reaction to just assume it was some unbelievably offensive thing we cannot even imagine seems a little silly. Second, there is NOTHING that could have been said that would have even come close to justifying his reaction. Beyond that, he has been one of the most famous players in the world for a decade. You’d think that in that time he would have grown a little bit of a thick skin, at least enough to avoid a totally reckless and idiotic move that put his team in danger.
Anyways, the story is not that the mean old Italians were taunting him. The story is that a football hero completely lost his mind, and may have lost his team the World Cup. There is just no justification for this:
It’s also been interesting to me that many people suggest that France was dominating the game. I’m not sure which match they were watching, but surely it wasn’t the one I saw yesterday. I will admit that, especially in the second half, France was moving the ball better, and controlling possessions, but the Italian defense on the back line utterly shut them down, and Buffon made some quality saves. So France only had two or three actual legitimate scoring opportunities in the whole game. You’ll notice that despite “being in control” they didn’t manage to convert a single goal.
In fact, for the second straight game, their only goal was on a penalty kick. And, while I complained about the one in the semis, that one at least was a penalty. My impression from watching the replays of the “foul” in this game was that there was no contact at all and France just took a dive in the hopes that they might score a goal if they could take the Italian defenders out of the equation.
The game itself was nowhere near as high-quality as the two semifinal matches. It’s a shame that our memories of this match will be marred by the meltdown of Zidane and resolution via penalty kicks (what a silly way to decide a game!). But let’s not forget just how well these two teams played over the course of the tournament. And let’s not take anything away from Italy, who got the job done, and utterly shut down the opposing offenses over the last month.
Now, it’s just four short years until the next one. Time enough for the US to shape up and get themselves ready, eh?
Music comments coming later today…