Sacre Bleu, Zizzou! What could you possibly have been thinking? You're in overtime of the World Cup Final, your team is dominating, so what do you do? Lay a vicious headbutt on Marco Materazzi and get red-carded, taking away any momentum from your team and forcing them to spend the remainder of overtime defending, sending the final to penalty kicks where they lose because you, their best penalty-taker, are no longer on the field. I don't care what the guy said to you, you're a world-class athlete in the final (and arguably biggest) game of your career. What the hell? And even if the referee was looking the other way, with that many cameras in the stadium, you're never going to get away with such an obvious, violent foul. It's really a shame to see you go out this way. After a mesmerizing run through the knockout rounds where you rediscovered your magic touch on the ball, you should have been hoisting the trophy. But c'est la vie, no? Life is not a Hollywood movie.Credit should go to the Italians for holding out to reach penalty kicks despite being obviously dog-tired for much of the second half, but you have to think Zidane getting sent off was a huge boost to their flagging spirits, especially after he had nearly won the game a few minutes earlier with a masterful header. Maybe if he had stuck to heading the ball rather than an opposing player, this final would have had a different plotline. But Zidane's antics aside, I have to say that I hate the idea of deciding the world championship on something as arbitrary as penalty kicks. I think PKs are perfectly legitimate to decide matches during the knockout phases, because you need to keep the length of the games fairly even to keep it fair. But for the final match of an event that only happens once every four years? Suck it up and keep playing until somebody wins. Plenty of time to rest when it's over.
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