” Oh, Zinedine, oh Zinedine, not that Zinedine, not that Zinedine, not that, not today, not now, not after all you’ve done… Remember, it was 17 years ago, July 9, 2006 to be exact, the France lost the World Cup final against Italy on penalties (1-1, 5 pens to 3), at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, after being abandoned by its captain Zidane during extra time (110th).
After insulting words uttered by Marco Materazzi, visibly against the sister of “Zizou”, the Ballon d’Or 98 then inflicted a huge headbutt on the Azzurri defender, while the game was taking place from the other side of the field. On TF1, Thierry Gilardi and Jean-Michel Larqué then imagine an altercation between David Trezeguet and “Matrix”, but it was therefore another player who had passed through Serie A who was at fault…
Gilardi disappointed
Warned by his 4th referee, the Spaniard Luis Medina Cantalejo (who may have seen the replays), the Argentinian referee Horacio Elizondo waved the red card. Gilardi then continued on the air, for what has become a mythical tirade of French football: ” and that’s what I was dreading! It’s terrible, it’s not possible! But no, we can’t dispute, even if something happened before, Zinédine can’t answer, can’t put this whim “.
At 34 and after 5 seasons at real Madrid who made him enter a little more into the legend of the round ball, Zinédine Zidane had decided to end his career at the end of the German World Cup. And the native of Marseille eliminated a Spain which was already sending him to retirement before making a master class outstanding against Brazil in the quarter-finals. This French team of the hated Raymond Domenech will not have managed to finish the job against less talented Italians.
