so italy did win, bye bye zidane

Seems crazy yeah. If He'd had a stormer and France won, for me he'd have become the 3rd best player of all time. Now, after that finish, I'm not sure. The wierd thing is, they missed one penalty in the shootout, with maybe the best penalty taker in the world back in the changing rooms.... Though perhaps it wasn't that pivotal.

Still, he was (is) a great player; in truth, the best team in the tournament won. For me, it would've been a great story but maybe a bit of a travesty if France won it. Italy haven't won anything for years and always seem to lose penalty shoot-outs, they've played so well this tournament and produced the goods when it's mattered.

Shame to see the final decided by penalties, and for me it's a shame the end of the tourney has been a bit of a damp squib (other than the Italy v Germany semi, and the Germany Argentina quarter final, I felt that the tournament kind of lost interest after the quarter finals...).

I don't think it'll hurt the big French players TOO much, because most of them have won a WC or European championships medal already (Thuram, Barthez, Henry, Trezeguet, Zidane, Viera etc.).

Overall, a decent WC but not the most memorable, I'd say (tentatively) it's been the worst one I can remember, but still some very entertaining moments and (I think) a great story that the Ity's won when their game is in tatters back home. It should lift Italy (and Italian football) so much, which can only be good for the game. And it's nice we didn't see too much pathetic diving or a spate of pointless yellow and red cards in the final (which blighted the tournament somewhat in the earlier rounds).

Congratulations Italy, deserved winners.

Feck. Arse.

Ahhhh... the ONE team I didn't want to win it goes ahead and does it. Awful.

Zidane? I don't know. Obviously incredibly stupid thing to do. Materazzi is a very viscious player and I can imagine that he was saying some pretty nasty stuff but Zidane has been playing top international football for a decade and a half, he should be able to shrug it off.

First half was even with Italy having a small advantage I thought. Second half France completely chewed up the cheating primadonnas and obviously I (very objectively) think they deserved to win. However...


YOU F-CKING PUSSYASS COWARDLY BITCH!! <--- That's direced at the french coach.

Henry is without a doubt the best forward in the world, it's not even close. He's a head above everyone else. But they've given him NO support up front. Sure the flankers comes up a lot on their runs and Viera and Zidane tends to move forward, but it's too little and always too late. He's usually completely isolated for the first attack, and since he likes to go out on the left or drop back to collect the ball he really needs a forward partner to play off. If they had a massive target player like Koller or someone I'd be OK with using this tactic, but when you have THE best attacking player in the world, for f-cks sake USE HIM PROPERLY! If he really HAS to play 4-2-3-1 I'd rather have Trez up front and Henry on the left.

Cannavaro is player of the tournament for me. He has proven to me that he is the best defender through history. Absolutely amazing performance today and every game of the cup.

Im still in shock. I wish i knew what the Italian player said to him...

Good game though.

Oh, I should also congratulate the referee and linesmen, who, in a tourney blighted by poor decisions, all had faultless games.

When it came to pens I had no feeling who might win, thought maybe France because of Barthe in goal but it's wierd to get to the end of the game and it be so close.... France played better on the night but given how badly they sucked early on (and would have been eliminated in the first round in a better group) and given Italy only conceded 2 goals (a freak OG and a penalty that looked a debatable decision), I felt they were deserved WC winners. Shame the frogs are booing and whistling them coming to get the trophy too.....

And yeah, Cannavaro, hands-down player of the tournament for me too. He looked close to finished a year or two ago, but this has been an amazing finish to his career (I can't see him playing more than maybe another year or two internationally). Oh, and Lippi could be the best coach in the world after this, he's basically won everything in football now.

On a related note, congratulations to Roger Federer on his shock Wimbledon win today ..... I noticed one bookmaker here had him 25-1 ON to win.... in a 2 horse race, lol.. Well, he didn't disappoint...

I hate Italy as a rule but for me they played as fairly as anyone in this WC, scored enough goals, defended well and played decent football. On the night I'm almost glad they won really.

Who made up the stupid idea to have the Finals of the "biggest sporting event in the world" decided by penalty kicks...??? It's tantamount to the NBA Championship decided by a slam dunk contest of MLB decided by a homerun hitting contest... Just bunk... Especially since, and I'm not soccer expert, but I watched about all of the second half, and it seemed like France played a MUCH better game, with about 10 shots on or at least near the goal (a bunch of cross passes right in front but no one was there...)...

And YES, that dood headbuttin the other one was about the most exciting/cool thing of the whole match...

Instead of going to PKs, they should allow unlimited substitutions after the first two overtimes. Get a bunch of players in there with some energy. Let them play another 60 minutes. First goal wins.

If that doesn't do it, then, I don't know, make the goal bigger. Something. Anything is better than PKs.

yeah the headbutt was pretty thriller in retrospect and if it was a response to a racial slur, well I can understand that at some level. The adrenaline and intensity at that level of play makes violence an easy avenue. Im really surprised that the entire stadium didnt go up in flames after that clip was shown, shows german efficiency there (which has downsides).