Zi goat

Wow. Just wow. I'll be interested to see if Zidane tells the press what was said to him, because I can't understand how such a seasoned veteran could make such a mental mistake in such a huge spot. Sure, it's not the first time he's ever done this (he was red-carded for another head butt in the Champions League in 2001, apparently), but how do you not understand the stakes, especially as captain? What on earth was he thinking? How is it possible that Materazzi could have said something more offensive than anything else Zidane had ever heard in his career?

Zidane's move was even more goat-tastic for two reasons. Getting yourself sent off in a World Cup final is bad enough - the first time it ever happened was 1990 and Zidane is only the fourth player ever to do it - but to do so when (a) your team is clearly playing the better football and has been for an hour and (b) you're the best penalty kick taker on the team with a shootout looming, that's just horrible. It was an embarrassing lapse in judgment for one of the greatest players ever, and one who had had, I dare say, a surprisingly great tournament, defying all possible expectations. Honestly, you have to wonder if Materazzi wasn't trying to get Zidane to do something stupid, knowing that a shootout - a format at which, historically, the Italians have been absolutely crap - was quite possibly on the schedule.

Would the French have won with Zidane in? I don't know. Both goalkeepers looked lost during the shootout - not a single save, which I think is the first time that happened in this tournament, with Italy only winning thanks to Trezeguet overhitting it. But does that happen if Zidane's there? Impossible to say. Could they have won it in the final ten minutes with Zidane still in? Maybe, but quite possibly not. Still, just having his presence on the field would have changed things. Zidane had nearly won the game just a couple minutes earlier, after all. (My dad is of the opinion that Zidane cost himself tens of millions of dollars with the headbutt. "If he scores the goal, and doesn't get thrown out, he becomes Pele," he said. I would tend to agree on the latter count, though when you consider that Eric Cantona has been the face of Nike for four years, I don't know that being a loose cannon is enough to cost you a sponsorship in international soccer.)

All this, of course, provides yet another reason to complain about the PK shootout. I hate it. I loathe it entirely, especially as a way of settling a World Cup final. Would you settle Game Seven of the World Series with a home run derby, the Super Bowl with a field-goal kicking contest? I realize that it's very difficult to keep playing when the field is so big, and the idea of pulling players off isn't particularly viable because fewer players means more running for any given individual, which means fatigue comes even quicker... but there has to be a better way than this.

It bothers me particularly because the best team does not always win the shootout. In this case, the best team definitely did not win, because anyone who watched this game should be able to tell you that France were clearly the better side for pretty much the entire match. In the second half and overtime, Italy were constantly playing inside their own half, and looked the worse side in terms of conditioning even though France were the older team. And then it all comes down to a contest in which the goalie has no chance unless the guy kicking it chokes? Terrible. (There is no way you can argue against this - the goalie never has a chance if the kicker puts the ball in a corner with a good amount of speed. The only time a guy misses is if he kicks it too softly, allowing a save, or blasts high or wide.) As my dad said, and I agree, it's embarrassing that supposedly the greatest sporting event in the world comes down to such a crapshoot contest as a way of resolving itself. Necessary evil? Maybe. I don't think we're getting rid of it anytime soon. But there has to be a better way.

All that said, Buffon has to be your player of the tournament. No goals conceded from the run of play, and the only goals he allowed were an own goal he couldn't possibly have stopped and a penalty kick (and we've been over that). That, combined with his game-saving stop on Zidane's header - which probably goes in against any other goalie in the world - makes him player of the tournament. Italy don't win without him; they just didn't have the offense.

So that's it for the World Cup. Truly disappointing finish to what I thought was a pretty good final through 110 minutes; truly disappointing way for Zidane to end his international career. It was a good World Cup, not a great World Cup, and a lot of the knockout stage games were disappointing, but ultimately I think we did see two of the three or four best teams in the entire tournament contest the final, and that's probably about as much as you can hope for under normal circumstances. Still... in Berlin, on Sunday night, the best team on the pitch did not win. And while it's not like that never happens in any other sporting event, it's still a shame that an event that only comes around once every four years couldn't have provided a more satisfying, or appropriate, conclusion.