A Cracking Finale ...

Roses, originally uploaded by Sarfraaz.

I have never seen such a well fought final in any sport till now. The World Cup 2006 final between France and Italy was exhilarating, to say the least. History repeated itself, and after qualifying to the finals, once in every 12 years since 1970, and winning every alternate time they qualify, the Italian Azzuries won the World Champoinship with some great fight and sheer grit.

It was a very strange start to the proceedings of the match, as in the very second minute, Thiery Henry had an accidental collision with an Italian player suffering a head injury which almost fainted him off !!! And, as has been the case since the first match of this World Cup, with goals being scored within the first 10 minutes, French were given a penalty kick in the 7th minute for a foul on Balouda. Zidane shot the penalty with great calmness and confidence, that seemed to have pushed the ball just behind the goaline after striking the top of the goalpost, completely fooling Buffon on the ground. Only a man of Zindane's caliber could have taken the penalty with so much audacity.

An early goal lifted up the spirits of the players, and we were destined to see some great football all through the match, well almost for 110 minutes !!! Italy fired back soon with a well directed header in the 19th minute to level the scores. From then on, Italy took the back seat and started doing what they were best at, defending the ball. France had the majority of the possession and played some great short passing games, but could hardly break the strong Italian defense.

Henry had his moments too. He added pace to the French attack and in combination with their new find Ribery, was playing very well, something I have not seen Henry do that often for France. It was good to see this aggression in him for France. I had not seen Italy so closely in this world cup, but they showed some great defending football and truly deserved being in the final. The whole of France tried all possible attacks, and Henry even got a break into the Italian defense a couple of times, but could not beat Buffon, the great Italian goalkeeper. He was guarding the Italian goal like a commander-in-chief.

There was hardly anything to choose between the 2 teams. The match was destined to reach extra time. In the extra time, France showed some signs of breaking the Italian defense, with Ribery getting the closest to the Italian goal, even beating Buffon, only to see himself being replaced by his coach !!! Even Henry, probably with tired legs, was replaced and it was all left to Zidane to show some magic. Zidane got his chance to show his greatness in the starting moments of the second half of extra time, when he was unmarked and headed a perfectly delivered ball, but only to see Buffon brilliantly pushing it above the goalpost to safety. That moment changed the entire match, and France had lost it.

The way in which France emerged in this World Cup was worth appreciating. There was utter chaos in the initial matches with infighting among players [ witnessed on the ground ]. One good goal from Viera in the group stages added confidence into the players, and France got a back door entry into the knockout stage. They made great use of this chance, playing very good football, beating the World Cup holders Brazil, and the rising Portugal. With Italy in the finals, they tried every trick in their book, but could not break the strong Italian defense.

Just for this sheer will of holding onto the goal, and going into the penalty kicks with so much confidence, the match definitely belonged to Italy. All the 8 penalty kicks were perfectly taken, no mistake what-so-ever, except that the result of one penalty kick was unfortunately not in France's favour, that sealed the match for Italy. Italy, playing a completely defensive game, truly deserved the World Cup, for they did not concede a single goal in this whole tournament. Well, the only 2 goals they ever conceded was one from the penalty by zidane and the other being a self goal, both of which cannot be considered as a lapse in their defense.

There was one outrageous moment in the match though, when Zidane for reasons only he can answer , headed straight into the chest of Materazzi, and was shown a red card, marring his departure from the World arena with lots of unanswered questions. May be it was the frustration of not converting the golden chance he had to head the goal into the Italian defense, with probably some unruly comments from Materazzi that provoked him to do something so outrageous. We will probably never know. But nothing can be taken away from the brilliance of this man, especially the great agility and panache with which he played the matches in this World Cup, for which he was given the Golden Ball, although in quite controversial circumstances.

At the end of the day, it was the Azzuries who reigned supreme and were deservedly crowned the World Champions, the 4th time in their 6 appearances in the finals, next only to Brazil, who have 5 crowns. It might have been yellow all the way in this tournament, but for the coming 4 years its gonna be BLUE that will rule the football all over the world ....