footballspectator

At Germany 2006, we may not have seen a team as flamboyant as the Brazilian team of 1970 or 1982 or an individual performance as great as Maradona’s in 1986, but nonetheless we will all be left with our own special memories, especially Italians. The history books will show that during this World Cup, a number of records were broken.

A clearly out-of-shape Ronaldo broke Gerd Muller’s legendary record of 14 World Cup goals, which he may increase further if he gets himself into shape by 2010 (unlikely). Team-mate Cafu has won his 16th match playing with Brazil but unfortunately also became the player who has received the most World Cup yellow cards (6).

Fellow countryman Felipao, stretched his record streak of consecutive World Cup victories to 11 before Zidane’s penalty ended it in the semis. Brazilian records are not only individual. They remain the most successful team, having gone to all 18 World Cup finals, winning 64 of their 92 matches scoring 201 goals. They also hold the record for most consecutive victories (13) and most victories in a tournament (7).

Turning to finalists France and Italy now. ZZ’s red card in the final made him only the second player to be send off in different tournaments. On the good side, he became only the fourth player to score 3 goals in finals (Pele, Vava and Hurst were the others). Italy’s fourth title moves them into second place behind Brazil (5). They also equalled France’s record set in 1982 for the highest number of different scorers in a tournament (10).

Germany have an enviable record at World Cups and by qualifying from their Group, remain the only team to have qualified for the knock-out stages at every tournament they have played. Their victory on penalties against Argentina means they are still undefeated in shoot-outs.

The Swiss set two records. They were the first team not to concede a goal and yet not reach the quarters and the first team to miss all their penalties in the shoot-out loss to the Ukraine. Portugal’s Ricardo became the first ‘keeper to save 3.

The tournament was the “hardest” of all-time with a total of 26 red and 310 yellow cards. Among the yellows shown were the 3 that Josep Simunic received from Graham Poll - another record…

Many records still remain, however. Here are a few of the best:

The 27 goals scored by Hungary in 1954.

The 5 goals in a single game scored by Oleg Salenko’s against Cameroon in 1994

The 171 tournament goals scored at France ‘98.

How many of these will remain after South Africa 2010?

Speaking to Gazzetta Dello Sport, World Cup hero (and villain) Marco Materazzi admitted that he insulted ZZ, prior to being headbutted in the chest. However, he denied calling him a “dirty terrorist” or bringing ZZ’s mother into it because as he put it “for me a mother is sacred“. Materazzi lost his own mother when he was 14.

According to “the Matrix” as Inter fans call him, he held Zidane’s shirt for a few seconds  which irritated Zidane who turned around and looked him up and down before saying arrogantly, “if you really want my shirt, I’ll give it to you after the match“. Materazzi responded to this with an insult. When specifically asked whether he targeted ZZ’s sister, he described the insult as “one of those insults which one often says and which sometimes comes out during a match“….No denial then - sounds like the theory of the “sister” jibe (which we reported yesterday) wins it then!

Love Zidane? Hate Materazzi? Want to emulate your hero? Now all you need is an internet connection and you can headbutt away to your heart’s content with “Zidane - The Video Game“!

[click on picture for link. NB traffic restrictions may mean that site is not always accessible]

There is a consensus that Zinedine Zidane, normally a quiet man, must have been provoked into headbutting Marco Materazzi. Speculation is now growing as to what Materazzi said or did. Two versions are gathering pace. The first, according to L’Equipe is that Materazzi called Zizou a “dirty terrorist” because of his Algerian roots. The second, according to Brazilian TV channel Globo is that Materazzi insulted Zizou’s sister, Lila, and called her a “prostitute” twice. The channel had lip-reading experts examine the video evidence and this is the conclusion they reached.

France’s Florent Malouda said later that Zizou told the French players in the dressing room what Materazzi had said but did not divulge any details. Zizou’s agent Alain Migliaccio, told BBC Radio Five Live that his client’s reaction was provoked by some “very serious comments“. The rumours are likely to continue over the coming days and unless Zizou himself makes a statement we are never likely to know the truth.

When Zinedine Zidane stepped up and nonchalantly chipped his penalty over Gianluigi Buffon, he seemed destined to write the perfect ending to his glorious career. The World Cup final is the most high-pressured match in sport, played in front of a global audience of 2.5 billion. Yet here was the greatest player since Diego Maradona shrugging off the pressure, showing supreme confidence in his own ability and delivering. The message was clear, “I am at the top of my game“. Gennaro Gattuso, who when asked before the game how he was going to prepare to mark Zidane, responded, “Pray“, must have been worried. The doors to footballing immortality beckoned. Zidane was on the path to usurping the great Johan Cruyff and becoming the third member of the Holy Trinity of football - Maradona, Pele and now Zizou.

Fast forward 102 minutes. The score was 1-1 but France were in control. Zidane was the conductor of France’s orchestra. Italy were hanging on. They had dominated the first half and deservedly equalised through Materazzi. They should have been ahead but Toni’s header hit the bar. Gattuso had kept ZZ subdued, but the difficulty of marking him had taken its toll. He had broken free from Gattuso’s shackles in the second half and his influence had grown.

Then, in a moment of madness everything changed. There was a verbal exchange with Materazzi, a smile, and suddenly Zizou turned and headbutted Materazzi in the chest. The inevitable red card followed. This is was not the first time Zidane had lost his temper and succumbed to an an act of violence. At France 1998, he was sent off for a stamp on Saudi Arabia’s Fuad Amin and missed the next 2 matches. In 2000, while playing for Juventus against Hamburg, he was sent off for headbutting Jochen Kientz. The difference was that on both those occasions he had time to redeem himself and remind us of his wonderful quality as a player. He isnpired France to victory in the final of 1998 with two goals. In the Champions League, the abiding memory is of his athletic volley against Leverkusen in 2002 which gave Real Madrid the title. This time there would be no time for redemption - Zidane walked off the pitch and out of football. The glorious ending became a tragic one.

Without their leader, confidence drained from the French side. They seemed as shocked as football fans around the globe were. Defeat was inevitable. Fabio Grosso stepped up to complete his fine tournament and hammered the ball past the hapless Barthez in the penalty shootout. Italy were champions for the fourth time. They had not reached the heights of their semi-final performance and looked drained, but they did enough and deserved their victory for the manner in which they had won over football fans by moving away from catenaccio playing the attacking football that their talented forward line craved.

This morning Zidane was controversially given the Golden Ball, awarded to the torunament’s MVP. Fabio Cannavaro was probably a more deserving winner. He lead his team all the way, whereas Zidane let his down at the crucial moment.

In time, as the furore over his dismissal subsides, the most vivid memories of ZZ will be of his silky touch, his unrivalled skill and his ability to control a game. It has happened before: Maradona, despite his “hand of God” is remembered as a footballing genius. For what he has achieved through his career Zidane deserves his place in the pantheon of football greats as the defining player of his generation. I for one would elevate him above Cruyff as the third best player the world has seen. But today, my memory of Zidane the player is tinged. Why is genius always flawed?

Anyone who watched Brazil play cannot be anything but disappointed by the Seleçao’s performances. Newspaper Folha of Sao Paulo has now revealed the reasons behind the teams poor showing. The paper claims that the camp was divided, with half of the squad in favour of heavy drinking and other forms of “excess“, with the remainder shunning such behaviour especially during a World Cup. Surprise, surpise, two of the main culprits were Ronaldo and Adriano, who smoked and drank heavily on their days off. Kaka, Lucio, Luisao, Cris and Ze Roberto were (understandably) angered by such behaviour with Ze Roberto saying “I tried my hardest but every player must ask himself whether he did“. One day after Brazil’s exit to France, Adriano and Ronaldo were spotted out clubbing and team-mates have accused Ronaldo of only being interested in breaking the World Cup goals record (which he did).

Cafu is another who does not escape criticism - the accusation against him is that his primary motivation was to break the record for the highest number of appearances in World Cup finals matches and that he did not care about how the team did. This seems a strange charge to hold against him - surely Brazil’s progress in the tournament would also help him improve his record!Whatever the truth, the fact is that World Cups are not won on reputation but on performance and this is why Brazil failed.

The shackles were off last night and with little at stake Germany and Portugal produced an entertaining 3rd place play-off match in Stuttgart. The Germans, playing at home, wanted it more and prevailed 3-1, with Bastian Schweinsteiger the star with his two long range efforts. The first on 59 minutes appeared to be a stunning goal, as he cut in from the left before shooting powerfully past Ricardo from 20 metres. In slow motion however its clear that  penalty specialist Ricardo should have saved it. Schweinsteiger’s free kick then caused havoc and Petit deflected it into his own net. His second goal was almost a carbon copy of his first but this time at least there was no goalkeeper error involved as Schweini’s shot curled away from Ricardo and just inside the post.

The match was not all Germany however and Portugal got the consolation goal their inventive play with two minutes left, with Figo delivering the last stunning cross of his 15 year international career which was converted by forgotten man Nuno Gomes with a diving header. This was also the last international match for Oliver Kahn and Pedro Pauleta. Now for tonight’s main course.

Its been 3 days since Germany’s loss to Italy in the epic semi-final in Dortmund and the Germans are yet to get over it. A number of journalists have declared all out war on Italy. Yesterday the website of newspaper Die Zeit had an article entitled “Mafia in the final” with a picture of some of the Italian players posing in their underwear. It also contained a link to an article entitled “Moggiopoli“, reminding its readers of the scandal currently gripping Italian football. Rheinische Post follows Die Zeit’s line and talks of the “French Revolution” which it expects to take place in Sunday’s final. Further, rather than focussing on tomorrow’s game most German press coverage if focussing on the future of their national team.
Following the incidents that marred the quarterfinal victory over Argentina, the Germans accused the Argentineans of being bad losers. Maybe they should take a look at themselves before they accuse others.

We published our team of the tournament for games up to the round of sixteen a couple of weeks ago. Now FIFA’s Technical Committee have published theirs, only that rather than select 11 players, they have selected a full World Cup squad compliment of 23. As expected the squad is dominated by the semi-finalists, France (4 players) Germany (4 players), Portugal (4 players) and Italy (7 players).

The squad in full:

Goalkeepers: Buffon (Italy), Lehmann (Germany) Ricardo (Portugal)

Defenders: Ayala (Argentina), Terry (England), Thuram (France), Lahm (Germany), Cannavaro (Italy), Zambrotta (Italy), Carvalho (Portugal)

Midfielders: Ze Roberto (Brazil), Vieira (France), Zidane (France), Ballack (Germany), Pirlo (Italy), Maniche (Portugal), Figo (Portugal), Gattuso (Italy)

Forwards: Crespo (Argentina), Klose (Germany), Totti (Italy), Toni (Italy), Henry (France)

In our view there are some surprising omissions: Maxi Rodriguez of Argentina, Ricardo Osorio of Mexico and Lukas Podolski of Germany, who was voted Young Player of tournament. They are more worthy of inclusion than Maniche, Terry and Crespo.

The BBC has just launched its “goal of the tournament” competition. Like every “[ ] of the tournament” competition, it has been launched sometime before the end of the tournament, to capitalise on viewer interest. The risk of course is that the best goal of them all may be scored in the final. So we have chosen to call it “goal of the tournament (so far)“. Our favourites are: Esteban Cambiasso’s as best “team” goal, Maxi Rodriguez’s because of its importance, and Torsten Frings‘ goal against Costa Rica. I would also replace Steven Gerrard’s goal with Fabio Grosso’s semi-final strike.

If last night’s semifinal between Italy and Germany was a celebration of football, tonight’s clash between France and Portugal came close to being an abherration of the beautiful game.

Neither of the teams seemed to be overly bothered with securing a ticket to Berlin: after a lively start, the Portuguese were more concerned about perfecting their diving skills in the hope of being awarded a generous penalty (no presents from the referee but why didn’t he book them once for that?), while France looked like they were always in control, despite no texactly trying very hard.

All in all it was a very boring encounter that resembled more an average group stage match than a semi-final… There was a goal, for France, of course: Zidane coolly slotted in a penalty awarded after Carvalho’s foul on Henry in the 33rd minute. And that was pretty much it. Portugal never looked like a real threat, and the impression they gave was that had the match lasted 180 minutes or more, they would have still failed to put one in.

Maybe had they had a proper striker (can someone explain us how Pauleta managed to score 47 goals in 83 international appearances?), things could have been different. It wasn’t meant to be: the French curse continues for the Portuguese, and Zidane and co are now off to Berlin to face Italy on Sunday 9 July.

Make no mistake: they will have to step up one or two gears if they want to have a chance to beat the mighty Italians.

If anyone ever asks you why you love football, hand them a DVD of last night’s World Cup semi-final between Italy and Germany. To those that say “a goal-less match is dull” say “watch the first 90 minutes of this game” and then ask them if their opinion has changed. This match defined why football is called the beautiful game. It’s beautiful because it’s cruel, because a match can be decided in an instant, because a team can dominate and still be in danger of losing.

With one minute left to play, Italy fans were fearing that this would happen. Their team had dominated from the start displaying an attacking gusto not traditionally associated with Italian teams. They had created numerous chances but not converted them having been denied either by Lehmann or the frame of the goal.

To make things worse, Germany had played the role of villain, (usually played by the Italians) perfectly. There were decisions that went in their favour - notably a non-existent free kick on the edge of the box with minutes of normal time left. They did not return the ball when   Italy kicked the ball out of play for an injured player to receive treatment. Ballack dived constantly but was never booked. They also had chances in the dying minutes - Podolski’s free header which he put wide, his shot which was saved by Buffon. To score now though would reduce the torture. It was all set up for that classic sting in the tail. Penalties were looming and as every fan knows a penalty shoot-out against Germany equates to a defeat. The editors of La Gazzetta and Tuttosport were putting their finishing touches to their morning headlines: “Heroic Italy fall in penalty shoot-out“, “The curse of the penalties strikes again”.

Then in an instant, everything changed. Andrea Pirlo’s clever reverse pass found Fabio Grosso, whose curling shot beat Jens Lehmann to put the Azzurri ahead - euphoria. “But wait! this is Germany, they might still pull it back!“, cried the fans. The doubt began to set in.

Every great drama needs a hero and one minute later, Gilardino found Del Piero the man who is still blamed for Italy’s defeat to France in Euro 2000. The Juve man took the ball in his stride and shot the ball past Lehmann to become that hero and finally give Italy the victory that their performance deserved. If France win tomorrow, he will have a chance to take his revenge and complete his rennaissance in the biggest final of them all.