At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Italy would win the final after
a dramatic penalty shootout win over France.
And yet their victory - and really the whole competition - was overshadowed by a single act
in that game, and the shocking departure of one of football’s true modern greats.
At the 2004 European Championship, Zinedine Zidane had been part of a
French team who were unexpectedly eliminated in the quarter-final by eventual winners Greece.
Following that exit, many of the players who remained from the World
Cup win in 1998 and the Euro2000 success retired, including Zidane,
who – at 32 years-old – announced his intention to focus solely on Real Madrid,
where he was the centre-piece of Florentino Perez’s Galacticos project.
But just over a year later, with France’s stumbling through qualification for the
2006 World Cup, Zidane announced on his official website that he was returning to
international football. At 33, he was still one of the finest players in the world and
coach Raymond Domenech immediately restored him to the national team and made him captain.
France didn’t enter the tournament without starpower and Zidane wasn’t the only former
great to return to the side. Nevertheless, Domenech’s team were less than convincing:
they drew with Switzerland and South Korea in their group and needed a win
over Togo to progress to the knockout rounds, a game for which Zidane was suspended. And,
aside from the occasional velvet touch and artful through-ball,
there was little suggestion that he was going to have any significant impact on the tournament.
That would change in the second round. France fell behind against Spain but
would equalize before half-time. In the final ten minutes, Patrick Vieira
would head-in a Zidane free-kick to give France the lead before, in stoppage-time,
Zidane himself would slalom past Carles Puyol and score to make the game safe.
But Zidane’s quarter-final performance against Brazil would be among his very
best for his country. Ahead of the tournament, the South Americans were heavily favoured and,
with a forward line of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Adriano and Kaka,
they deserved both their billing and their aura.
Again though, it would be Zidane’s day: he created the game’s only goal for Thierry Henry,
but the value of his performance was in its tone – with his step-overs and
mesmerizing pieces of skill which not only kept the ball away from Brazil,
but also challenged the perception of their superiority.
In the belief that it provided and the tenor of its ego,
it remains one of the great World Cup performances of all time.
By the semi-finals, France were certainly looking like a team of destiny and Zidane – who would be
retiring from all forms of the game at the tournament’s end – was easily their
most important player. Naturally, it was he who converted the penalty
against Portugal to send France through to the final in Berlin to face Italy.
The stage was set. The Italians had rather ground their way through the tournament,
progressing through their defensive strength. They knocked out host nation German in the semi-final,
but were still presumed a prop within Zidane’s grander fairytale.
And after just seven minutes, the final did seem set to be a
coronation. France were awarded a penalty and he made a mockery
of Gianluigi Buffon’s reputation as one of the world’s great goalkeepers,
scoring with a casual Panenka that kissed the crossbar and bounced down, just over the line.
But the Italians would equalize, with Marco Materazzi heading in a
corner. The game’s major protagonists had emerged and there would be no more goals.
Materazzi had a reputation. He was a tough tackling and physical defender, but he also
knew how to get under an opponent’s skin. Beyond his technical abilities, Zidane had a reputation
also – he had a temper and his long career had, occasionally, been blighted by petulance.
Just after half-time in extra-time, the inevitable clash occurred.
While the television cameras initially missed it, replays showed Zidane and Materazzi exchanging
words, then Zidane running past Materazzi before, seemingly in response to one last comment,
the Frenchman turned and headbutted the Italian square in the chest. Materazzi
crumpled to the floor and, after checking with his linesman, the referee produced a red card.
Five minutes before, Zidane had been denied a potential winning goal by an
excellent Buffon save. That might have been the perfect end to his career. As it was,
the last anyone saw of him on a football pitch was in the moments after his sending off,
when he trudged forlornly past the World Cup trophy on the sideline, down the tunnel into
retirement and into a dressing-room from where he could only watch the Italians win on penalties.