World Cup Fever

What a nightmare ending for Zidane. I knew it was something memorable, but I never thought a red card for headbutting an Italian in the chest was it.

The first half striated well for France. Malouda was fouled in the penalty area and got France the penalty. Zidane converted the penalty, he flicked it to the center of the goal, it hit the post and fell behind the line and went out again. It was clearly in and the referee made the right call in counting it. About 12 minutes later Materazzi scores with a header from the corner that beat Veira, Barthez, and Riberry. The ball went on top of each of the three French heads.

Italy continued to look dangerous afterwards, especially with corner kicks. They had a couple of other corner kicks that almost went it. Seemed like France couldn’t defend on set pieces. At the end of the first half, France upped their game a bit, they had most of the procession during that time, but the Italian defense was too good.

The second half is almost entirely all French. They had control of the ball in the midfield and intercepted most if Italy’s chances. Henry, Zidane, Ribery, and Malouda all tried to find space in the box. They just couldn’t find a chance, and when they did, the blew it. Even though most of the play was in the Italian half, Buffon did hardly nothing. The chances were either wide, or were cut by the defense. At the end of this half I knew Italy was going to win it, I though they will do something similar to what they did against Germany, the late goals thingi.

The first extra time was also all France. The Italians looked really tired and look as if they would do nothing but wait for the penalties to arrive. Zidane had a brilliant header save from the even more brilliant Buffon, who did really well to save that! Again France looked like the better team, but they couldn’t score.

In the second extra time it was also the same story for the first 5 minutes. Right until Zidane’s red card. WHAT AWAY TO GET SENT OFF! AND WHEN? IN THE WORLD CUP FINAL!! IN YOUR LAST MATCH AS A PLAYER!!!

Zidane had an exchange of words with Materazzi. There was a foul in the middle of the field. The referee stops the match, goes to the Italian box, we dont know what happened yet. Materazzi is on the ground. Then we get the replay, and we see Zidane headbutting Materazzi. I was like “wtf was that for!!!”

It didnt really go downhill from there, but the match opened up a bit. Italy started to pick up some rhythm. But still we can feel that it was obviously going to penalties.

With Zidane in the penalties, they might have had a better chance. The penalties were dull. No one missed his chance except for Trezeguet, who hit the top bar. All of the players scored. Italy wins!

Congrats to Italy. I really wrote them off. But as I said yesterday, defense wins the World Cup, and I predicted that the team that scores the second goal wins. Italy scored the second goal and they won.

It wasnt the most entertaining match, but I am sure most people will remember it for Zidane’s headbutt