Sport | Football
Penalties again: what a let-down
game, ends with the irrelevant squalor of penalties.
- By Brian Glanville
- Published: 00:00 July 10, 2006
For the second time a World Cup final, the climax to the most important competition in the global game, ends with the irrelevant squalor of penalties.
Italy could at least console themselves with the knowledge that in 1994 it was they who in Pasadena lost the final on spot kicks to Brazil.
It was a double anticlimax in that Zinedine Zidane, at 34 arguably the tournament's outstanding player, and probably the best and most influential on the field in Berlin, having coolly scored his early penalty, should assault Marco Materazzi and be sent off.
Violent streak
Would that one could say it was a quite atypical aberration; the truth is that Zidane has a violent streak, which has periodically shown itself in the past.
He was, after all, expelled when playing for France against Saudi Arabia in the 1998 World Cup and there have been a number of occasions when sudden, ferocious outbursts of temper have had him sent off for his various clubs.
If the final ultimately petered out after a bright beginning, at least both teams played some fine football to get there.
France suddenly revived after a couple of bleak early performances to excel in their wins against a dominated Spain and an astonishingly inert Brazil. Italy conquered Germany, showing the tactical adventure in the closing stages which brought two fine goals and deserved victory.
Yet the longer the game went on against France, the less adventurous they became. Was manager Lippi imbued with sudden fear and caution?
Overall it was a far better World Cup than 2002, won by a Brazilian team whose stars broke free from the cautious grip of Big Phil Scolari against a mediocre Germany, whose very presence in the final was comment on the competition.
This time, Germany soared after a flaccid beginning. Brazil began badly - that laborious win over Croatia - improved for a few games then sank into ineffectuality against France, another team who radically improved after a poor start in the image of Zinedine Zidane himself.
Almost, at 34, Zidane miraculously transformed from the waning, marginal figure of the two opening games into the magisterial hero of the victories against Spain and Brazil.
This, after his exclusion, following his substitution against South Korea, and his stand off with Raymond Domenech, seemed unlikely. But Domenech brought him splendidly back.
In their opening game, Brazil featured a plainly overweight Ronaldo, Adriano who had struggled through the Italian season at Inter, and Ronaldinho, forecast to be the star of the tournament, who seemed ill at ease in a restricted role.
Ineffectual Kaka
Even Kaka, scorer of a superb winner against Croatia, was so ineffectual against France that he was substituted.
As for the coaches, I've never been much impressed by Carlos Alberto Perreira as Brazilian manager, finding him largely dependent on his key players' form. Now when things went awry, he couldn't put them right.
Argentina's Jose Pekerman suddenly and fatally lost his way in the match against Germany, to the extent of pulling his essential playmaker, Riquelme, and failing to bring on the dynamic young winger, Lionel Messi, after which he resigned. Another sad anticlimax.
Even Michael Owen has now turned on Sven-Goran Eriksson, lambasting him for playing and sacrificing Wayne Rooney alone up front and for the idiocy of taking 19-year-old Theo Walcott to the tournament, then not having the guts to play him.
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