F365 Opinion

What a way to go.

The extraordinary anti-climax to Zinedine Zidane's career doesn't alter what he did achieve but the dramatic end to the World Cup final means that no discussion of him can avoid mentioning that moment of ultimate failure.

Quite what words he exchanged with Marco Materazzi are a mystery but the whole football world saw what happened next. There are few more certainly deserved red cards, more pointless displays of petulance. With the sides level and everything to play for Zidane had the perfect opportunity to take out legitimate revenge against Materazzi and instead left France in disarray.

No French footballer has achieved more and he will quickly be forgiven. But the incident will not be forgotten and, alas, there are high-flying low-lifes in
France who will make political capital out of the fall from grace of a player of
Algerian heritage.

The dismissal of one of the finest players any of us has seen in his last ever game makes suddenly more memorable a final that had promised to be a classic after two early goals but then settled into a battle between two sides unwilling to commit sufficient numbers forward to make a renewed breakthrough likely, other than from a set piece.

Italy looked more likely to find a winner, helped perhaps by the strange performance of Fabien Barthez and England-style marking at corners. And having come back to level there was a sense that the momentum, however faintly, was swinging Italy's way.

France suffered from the fact that Thierry Henry was off-colour from the start following his early bang to the head. He revived and threatened to win the game for France but flagged and that had great significance as Raymond Domenech went in search of a winner. On came David Trezeguet for Ribery, then Henry gave way to Sylvain Wiltord.

In 2000 I was in Rotterdam's De Kuip stadium when Trezeguet scored the golden goal that beat Italy in the European Championship final, a game I'll never forget and one that I'm sure drove on the survivors, such as Alessandro Del Piero, of the beaten team.

Trezeguet's club career with Juventus means he has hardly been a failure since but at international level it has been a different story. In 2000 he was the
emerging star of a side that were world and European champions and looking to dominate; instead he has shared in successive failures.

The chances he missed early in this tournament had seen him drop down the order; only the suspension of Louis Saha, the first-choice substitute striker of late, gave Trezeguet his chance now.

Like Zidane, though, the forward has gone from being a player who was the symbol of a great success to sharing in the responsibility for a great failure.

In 1998 these sides met in a goalless quarter-final settled on penalties. Then
it was Luigi Di Biaggio who hit the bar; now it was Trezeguet.

There's a cruelty inherent in football, cup football especially. There can only
be one winner, whereas a league season can be a success for any number of teams, with different ambitions and prospects. The World Cup is the ultimate in winner-takes-all affairs and for Italy fans, who have endured so much frustration in the past 24 years, this is a triumph to savour long and hard.

Yet for the rest of the world this is a match that will be remembered more for the losers. It is, as Professor James Greaves puts it, a funny old game.

Philip Cornwall

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