World Cup Finals France, Italy
Who will win


France v Italy: France(the best like I have been saying this whole time)

I want the team who plays the better football.

Difficult to make out who plays the better football.

France did nothing in the second half against Portugal.
Italy is playing something that can be close to catenaccio sometimes.

Altough... Lippi had four strikers on the field in the last 15 minutes. Very un-Italian.

Italy has Pirlo. France has Zidane.
Italy has Cannavaro. France has Thuram.

That means 0-0 after 120 mins.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the French tonight. No flair, anyway, but a solid job, and, bar the last minute or so, you never really felt like Portugal were going to score.

If I had to predict a winner, I'd say Italy.

what do you think who will win the small final?

Portugal or Germany?

Italy!
No doubt!

I think Italy will win as they have paid the ref...

France will win i think

The Germans.

Anybody see the France game last night? How refreshing to see all those dives in vain; the boys who cried wolf were deservedly told to stop whining time and time again. And those boos, when Ronaldo got the ball. Beautiful.

I came in on the last bit of regulation, watching merely out of curiosity and hoping to see Italy win.

I admit that I know basically nothing but the basics about soccer, and I've never taken much of an interest in it...

...but I ended up watching to the very end, completely interested in the outcome, and enjoying the wonderful spirit involved in the game.

There are a lot of reasons to appreciate this sport, and I'm glad that this helped me realize it.

Zidane's head butt was quite a highlight - I couldn't believe he did that!

I wanna know why he did it... I think it was something Materazzi said to piss him off-- if so, I wonder what he said. Although whatever it was, there's no excuse for what Zidane did. But I'm curious.

Plus, imagine how strong that impact had to be, to throw Materazzi to the ground-- the guy is 6 feet, 4 inches of solid muscle... not exactly a rag doll.

Oh well. Zidane had such a huge career; it's a shame that this is the last thing he chose to ever do on a field, because this is what everyone will remember.

On another note, Camoranesi finally got to fulfill his promise of cutting his hair! That was so cute when they all danced around him and cut it.

Love it. What a beautiful, beautiful headbutt that was. I've heard what Materazzi said was a racial slur; something about Zidane's African origins or something.

But yeah; what a beautiful hit.

How gutted I am now that both the footy and tennis has finished. The World Cup has been quite poor really but I still enjoyed it. It's football, it's the summer and it's a major tournament.

What a headbutt. That was the best thing in the whole tournament. I wonder at what point in turning back and looking at Materazzi did he think about a) assaulting him, and b) headbutting him in the chest. So unorthodox. He must have been reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Though no excuses for it at all. I don't like the attitude that he should defend himself. That's his job and in football you get baited into situations like that - you're supposed to handle them. Same goes for Rooney. Should prison officers attack the inmates that verbally and physically abuse them?

But what does everyone else think? Was it inspired by a bull or a ram?

It was Zidanes choice. He wanted that nobody will remember him.

Everyone is talking about how sad Zidane must be....yet, he should consider himself very lucky.
He's very lucky that Materrazi is well and kickin...such a headbutt to the chest could be very lethal -- I do not exaggerate, there was a guy I knew who died just from that.

As for rumors about racial comments which drive him to do it -- I dont buy it. He wouldnt throw it all away for that, Its more likely that mothers were involved.


Now about the match itself - France was definitely better. The italians were out of the game since second half started. They did nothing at all, and Lippi's substitutes were hardly noticed. On the other hand, that was just the case with France-Portugal: France won, but Portugal definitely dominated the game. So its down to the whole tournament....who deserve it more, France or Italy?

Needless to say, Argentina should've won. Too bad God was absent from the match against Germany.

Funny, I just checked Materazzi's page in Wikipedia - it is already locked for vandalism. But check this part out :

"Known mostly (and perhaps infamous) for his aggressive playing style, Marco Materazzi was a late bloomer."

Do you think this line was added after yesterday, or was it there all along?
"bloomer" - doesnt sound too objective. I wonder if this line will still be there tomorrow...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Materazzi

Viva Italia!!!
If everything would be fair, the game should've ended 2:0.

Wow.

That Panenka pentaly of Zidane was just gorgeous, altough it shouldn't have been a penalty, Materazzi barely touched Malouda.
Materazzi La Belva (the beast) scored a beautiful goal, he and the outstanding Cannavaro proved that Italian defenders are still the best in the world.

Italia deserved to win: their backline (Zambrotta, Cannavaro, Materazzi, Grosso) was the best of the tournament, midfielder Pirlo played near perfection, Gattuso is one of those players who can play two games on a row, and the strikers were there when they had to be. Even tough Totti wasn't that good, Buffon made the compensation by playing outstanding.

The red card of Zidane was not so decisive for the game as it looks: even with him, no one could have scored before the penaltys. Zidane would probably have kicked his penalty instead of Abidal (who was weak IMO) and Trezeguet would still have missed.
Materazzi was smart enough to let himself fall and act like to be murdered. No doubt it was really hard, but I think he exagerated a bit.
Brazilian lipreaders said Materazzi said Zidane's sister's a whore. In France they tell Materazzi said something bad about his mother. Englishmen say he called Zidane a terrorist. Materazzi's father said that Zidane shouted something first.

Anyways, next week Zidane will speak and tell what really happened. If he's no already murdered by that time.
Aha, finally. In fact the way they played was not particulary good, on some moments it was quite boring, especially after the 90 minutes of normal playtime (except for Zidane's moment of course) but the atmosphere was huge. Italy nearly exploded last night.

Congrats to Italy
Commiserations to the French who were probably the better side on the night!
Au revoir to Zidane who really should have known better!
As Martin O'Neill the ex-Celtic mangager and BBC pundit said last night "So Materazzi said something nasty to him?
well it's not as if it does'nt happen every 15 seconds in a football match.He really should be used to it and beable to rise above it!
Still it made for a finale no-one will ever forget and judging by the TV reports today he is still adored by the French public & rightly so for he has been an outstanding player for them!

Does anybody actually admire, in some sort of strange way, Zidane, after last night?

I love him.

I don't. Maybe that's because I admire Italian team.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I've always loved Italy. I think Cannavaro and Gattuso were the two top players in the tournament.

But that headbutt was fantastic; and I'm not too fond of Materazzi anyway. Good hard nut to the sternum.

The beautiful moment, with BBC commentary from Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer and Martin O\'Neill.

The beautiful moment, exclusive angle.

I love Gattuso, Pirlo, and Pippo Inzaghi. I also love Zidane. That man is really not understandable, his mind looks just blurry to me. Too great. I would give a lot to have a talk with him, on one of his chateaux in France.

I also love Materazzi, he has the best of Gattuso and Vieira in him. The over my dead body mentality of Gattuso, but without the naivity. And the red card collecting of Vieira, but Materazzi's elbows and tackles look deadlier. Isn't that superb? :p

Definately a fucked up way to end his career, but atleast he got the Golden Ball. Cannavaro got the Silver Ball, and Andrea Pirlo took the Bronze Ball. Great choices, IMO.

Here's what allegedly happened:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,28783-2263995,00.html

According to Materazzi, he hung on Zidane's jersey for a few seconds, after which Zidane looked very derogatory to him and said 'you can have my jersey later if you want'. Materazzi then said something that you hear a lot on the football field, but he wouldn't say what exactly he told Zidane.

They also reckon the Italian defenders were calling him "baldy" all night....
That must have really bought the red mist down i reckon!!