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Monday, July 10, 2006

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.

5 Comments:

  • Legends like Zidane should be role models - alas, it was behaviour that was disgraceful. A man who cannot control his emotions in such a huge world stage needs to learn a lot more about life!

    By Blogger vincentsunder, at 5:01 AM  

  • vincent.. i guess u never played football, hockey, or other games for your state or nation right? let alone played in an event as big as the world cup? there must be a reason why he lost his cool... i say this because it is easy to talk rather than walk your talk..

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:11 AM  

  • What an exit for Zidane!!!. That’s for sure. He could have earned this Headline with the World Cup in his hand but today the same headline carries a different story to it. Definitely, this story will go down in the history of world cup. The story of Zidane has ended and his exit will be remembered forever, but the Legend will continue.

    I choose not to judge him over what happen last night. I choose to judge him for all the great moments of brilliance he showed to the football world.

    Zidane just reminded us all that football is still human and not robotic as what many fans inhumanely demand. The incident for me unearths those human factors that seem to be buried and forgotten under the green carpet of technicalities and strategies.

    At this moment, I remember the infamous incidents of Eric Cantona’s Karate Kick and Diego Maradona’s 1982 exit and how these incidents re-affirm that there is no perfection in greatness. Zidane have joined the ranks of those who will be hailed as forgiven legends.

    It’s sad though to see how Zidane completed his career. Anyway, fairytale ending are just an imaginary tale in this real raw world.

    K.Shan

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:29 AM  

  • BERLIN, July 10 (Reuters) - France captain Zinedine Zidane won the FIFA Golden Ball award as the outstanding player of the World Cup despite being sent off in their final penalties shootout defeat by Italy on Sunday.

    The prize is decided by media votes at the tournament. Zidane received 2,012, Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro finished second (1,977) and his team mate Andrea Pirlo was third (715).

    Brazil and Spain shared the fair play award.

    Posted by

    K.Shan

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:53 AM  

  • All i can say is that Zidane's little header was the turning point of what was seeming to become a rather staid and boring match. It woke up the players on both sides. And it certainly did wake up the viewers.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:48 PM  

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