Zinedine Zidane, having pulled the French team through the knockout stages with his resurgent form on the pitch, stood on the edge of legendary greatness last night after giving France the lead in the World Cup final and almost scoring what may have been the winning goal in extra time.
But then with just ten minutes left of extra-time, the great man well and truely fucked it.
His headbutt to the chest of Marco Matterazi, whatever the spoken provocation, not only robbed the French of a golden opportunity to win their second World Cup in 8 years, but was probably one of the dumbest acts seen on a football pitch. Certainly one of the stupidest seen in a World Cup and definitely the most fuckwitted ever seen in a World Cup final.
France had the upper hand at the time, they had been dominant in the first half of extra-time (Making a mockery of Italian hopes that the ageing French would tire during the additional30 minutes) and looked the team most likely to score.
As it happened, Zidane took the long, lonely walk from the field of play, Italy held on for penalties and France let the World Cup slip through their fingers.
Congratulations to the Italians though. Throughout the tournament they've displayed the typical defensive brilliance that we all expect and actually been quite exciting when going forward. Ok, so they reverted to type a bit from the second half onwards and shut up shop, but in the first half they went out to win it and could have had a handsome lead sve for the woodwork and a disallowed goal.
On the night the French deserved it, but over the tournament Italy were deserving winners. It could have been different but we'll never know thanks to Zidane completely losing his head (In Matterazi's chest..)
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