Justice

The Big One. Not just the biggest football match in the world, but the single biggest sporting event on the planet. In fact in terms of getting numbers of human beings together doing the same thing, it may be the greatest uniting force known to man.

The World Cup Final.

Any poor unfortunate who has had to spend any time in my company over the last month can now begin to relax. My friends, everything I have put you through was all about last night. One match. 120 minutes as it turned out. It is at an end.

To those of you who are like me, I'm sure you were fighting back the tears before, during and after last night's finale. I hope you were strong, after all we have today and the next four years for reflection, and I hope that your last night, like mine, was an uninterrupted celebration of all we have been through together over the last 31 days.

If there is a God, he is obviously a romantic, as the celebrations turned out to be Italian. If the world's greatest story teller had submitted the tale of the Italian team's journey to this triumph as a work of fiction, it would have been laughed out of the publisher's office. We could fantasise forever about the most extreme example of a team finding a victory from the depths of adversity, but nothing anyone could conjure in their heads can compare with the extraordinary story that reality has provided us with in this World Cup.

Most of the Italian players came into the tournament facing the prospect of relegation with their clubs, and went into the final with that outcome a near certainty. Some have discovered that all their work, their very lives, has for the last few years been a pointless sham. Many have had to contemplate the news that their victories were false, their Championship medals won by the deception of others rather than their blood, sweat and tears.

If Italy had gone out ignominiously in the first round, no one would have batted an eyelid, it would have been seen as the inevitable demise of a group of shattered players representing a football association in disgrace. Instead their response was an overwhelming display of positivity, and from the moment Francesco Totti announced to his colleagues before the tournament that 'either you're a cheat, or you're one of us', Italy forged perhaps the greatest team spirit seen in a World Cup. It was probably Totti's most potent contribution to his teams' success. The Italians were not just playing to restore their own unfairly tarnished reputations, or to help clear the name of their great footballing nation. It's probably too late for that. Italy's players were playing for the thousands of football lovers in their immensely proud country, and all over the world, that still believe a great triumph can be achieved by fair means. This motivation proved to be an unstoppable force.

It is noticeable that the Italians have, unusually for them, been one of the least guilty sides for diving in this tournament. It is as if they couldn't contemplate indulging in this petty form of cheating, given the higher levels of deception their game is charged with.

Last night Italy gave one of their least effective performances of the World Cup, but their displays throughout the competition made them the more deserving winner of the two teams. The match itself was extremely even, and a classic game of two halves. Italy really should have been ahead at the break, their midfield quartet magnificent once again, and the vastly experienced French back four looking like they had never defended a set piece in their lives. It was indicative of the Italians' belief that they so easily shrugged off the penalty, both the award and conversion of which were dodgy, to play with the same confidence they had shown against Germany. France were in danger of being swept aside, the failings that have haunted them for six years, it seemed, were being cruelly exposed.

Nobody could have forecast the change that took place in the second half. The pundits' half-time analysis universally predicted an Italian victory, and for once it was impossible to argue with them. What fools we all were in believing this World Cup had no surprises left in it. It was as if France hadn't been told which game they were playing in beforehand, someone must have mentioned to them at half-time 'by the way lads, we forgot to tell you, this is actually the World Cup final'. From nowhere the French found a reserve of energy and confidence, and charged back at the Italians. The Azzurri suddenly hit a brick wall, and as much as their victory had looked nailed on in the first half, so a French win now seemed a certainty. Thierry Henry, for the first time in the tournament, actually started to play like the man who terrorises the Premiership every week, and the master defenders suddenly had to call on all their reserves of strength and will to prevent France from storming the fortress. Even the phenomenal Cannavaro suffered a spell of vulnerability in the face of this onslaught.

Italy also appeared to have reduced their own attacking possibilities with a bizarre pair of early substitutions, the tall centre forward Iaquinta asked to play first on one wing then the other, with no success either time, and the defensive midfielder De Rossi making an unwelcome comeback after serving a four match ban for the World Cup's most disgraceful challenge. In the end however, France themselves were stopped in their tracks by sheer exhaustion, Henry could barely walk off the field when substituted, and Patrick Vieira had by this time already departed for the dressing room with an injury.

Extra-time became inevitable, but with two debilitated teams on the field it was never an especially exciting prospect. Given their record, there is no chance that Italy would have conciously settled for penalties, but their bodies would not allow them to show the same commitment to attack that they so spectacularly displayed in the semi-final. The extra period began to peter slowly snd nervously towards the shoot-out, until interrupted by one of the most extraordinary incidents in the history of the World Cup, a moment that history will probably remember as the definitive one of the tournament.

For Zinedine Zidane, this World Cup had been the proverbial rollercoaster ride, from complete anonymity in the group stage, to a glimpse of brilliance against Spain, and then a spectacular rekindling of his glorious past to enable the defeat of Brazil. Having had a quiet night in the semi-final, surely this was the stage for Zizou to give us one final encore of the greatest footballing talent seen in this era. What he gave us was a departing image that, tragically, may stick in the minds of his millions of admirers forever. The question that kept me awake last night, and I imagine will continue to trouble the footballing world until we receive an answer, is: Just what on earth did Marco Materazzi say to Zidane? Whatever it was, it provoked perhaps the most violent reaction ever seen on such an enormous stage, Zidane suddenly turning and ramming his head into Materazzi's chest at full pace. The ensuing pandemonium can be explained simply by the complete astonishment felt by everyone present. The referee, who clearly didn't see it, had no clue what to do, the Italians who did see it didn't know where to take their protests, the French players looked on stunned, the crowd frozen in shock by what they had witnessed. It took the referee several minutes, and apparently a intervention from the 4th official who had viewed a replay on a pitchside monitor, to arrive at the correct decision to end Zidane's dazzling career with a red card.

Should we be terribly sad at the manner of Zizou's exit? In one sense yes, it's awful that our abiding memory of such a giant of the game should be of disgrace, and defeat. The worst thing about it was that the man never got to take a final bow. He should, win or lose, have been chaired around the Olympiastadion to a standing ovation, Zidane was after all a hero to every football fan in the world, not just the French supporters present at the game. Instead the great man did not even reappear to receive his medal.

In another way though, I can't help but feel priveleged to have witnessed such an historic incident. Dreadful as it may have been for Zidane, it was a truly unforgettable moment. During the minutes of waiting for the referee's decision, and seeing Zidane depart, it seemed as the though the world was frozen, as though the planet had ceased to revolve until it could come to terms with the seismic event that had just taken place. Isn't that what the World Cup exists for? I am obsessed with this competition because it provides me with memories more vivid than anything else I've ever seen. I'm sure that when I'm old I'll tell my life story in terms of World Cups, and it's events like this one that make that possible.

For Zizou himself, the legacy of last night may not be so terrible. After all, Diego Maradona's career was littered with disgraceful events, but it has hardly affected his legendary status. Even genuine England fans will admit that when they hear the name Maradona, they think first and foremost of the footballer, one of the two greatest players to have ever played The Beautiful Game. Zinedine Zidane has provided us with too many examples of his genius for it to ever be forgotten.

Having picked itself up off the floor, the World Cup had still to provide us with a champion. A penalty shoot-out would surely result in a French victory, as Italy can claim to be one of the few countries with a worse record than England in these events. The Italians had to banish the memories not only of the 1994 final, when two of its finest ever players were reduced to gibbering wrecks, but also two other recent failures, including one against the French in the 1998 quarter-final. Add to that the extra-time defeat to the same opponents in Euro 2000, and surely Italy had to be a team resigned to their fate. From the outset of World Cup 2006 though, it has been clear that this is a different Italy, armed with a mental strength never seen amongst its predecessors. I wrote in an earlier post about the power of a team playing with the belief that their triumph was destined, and Italy took their penalties as if safe in the knowledge that their success was guaranteed. Not one of the five kicks even threatened to miss. What an incredible turnaround from their previous failures, and how wonderful that the fates had finally handed back some luck to a team that has been deprived of it for so many years.

As the Italian players celebrated, there was a feeling in the air that justice had been done. Finally, payback for all those failed penalty shoot-outs, finally revenge for their being unluckily denied in the last breath of the Euro 2000 final. It was just that the World Cup's finest player ended with the trophy in his arms, and that other individuals that had played like World Champions, such as Pirlo and Gattuso, now have the right to claim that title. There was justice for Zidane, who left the field when it seemed that he might have got away with his crime. And there was justice for a group of players forced to play under a cloud due to the dishonesty of others.

Oh, and one last example of justice done that we shouldn't forget - the best team in the tournament won the World Cup. Of that there can be no doubt.

The final was by no means the best game of World Cup 2006, but it contained more than enough drama to make it an occasion worthy of its status. It was a fitting finale to a fabulous festival.

For me, there is still some work to be done. This is not a signing off message yet. I think I have put enough effort into keeping this record for it to warrant an adequate closure. This of course must include a selection of my team of the tournament, and a healthy summing up of the entire experience. Come back over the next couple of days for that.

To the football however, it's Arrivederci. And to Italy, the World Champions, Congratulazione!