A moment of Zidane madness

In the final against Italy earlier today, Zidane will be remembered for using his right foot once, and his head twice. On the first occasion, he scored a clever penalty to give France the lead over Italy.

Then when the match was drawn level, he almost put France ahead with a beautiful header which was saved superbly by the Italian keeper Buffon.

And then finally, perhaps the one moment Zidane will be remembered for, now that he is retiring after this, he used his head to butt into Marco Materazzi’s chest. It was an ugly and brutal assault on the Italian player and Zidane deserved to be red-carded.

Sadly, that was to be Zidane’s last move for the night, his last act in international football for the French, now tainted by this one moment of madness.

Television replays showed that Zidane was provoked by Materazzi who had said something as Zidane ran past him. Still, there is no excuse for such an experienced player to lose his temper.

We all have seen Zidane in this mood – remember 1998 World Cup match against Saudi Arabia? As well for both Juventus and Real Madrid?

But you would have thought that for a player who is back to his best and playing for the last time for his country, and within striking distance of that all-important trophy, he would show some form of self control.

For me, I think his best moment in this World Cup must be his excellent performance against Brazil in the quarter finals. That came after he had an excellent game and scored a memorable goal against Spain in the second round. Tonight, he started brightly and was almost there to achieve the dream.

Then he lost it all by not using his head in the proper manner. How sad.