World Cup Soup #9

The 2006 FIFA World Cup Final takes place this summer in Germany. Bridget and Bryan are going, and the rest of the Heffernan family is jealous. As this is the greatest spectacle in sports, there will be no shortage of unique tidbits surrounding the event. World Cup Soup will be there to document these items.

Insane Zidane

The World Cup is all over. But you know what else is finished? French hopes of a 2nd World Cup, the integrity of the Golden Ball award and Zinedine Zidane's career. Oh yeah, he also lost his sanity, integrity, reputation and ruined his legacy.

What a complete moron. He is the captain of his team in the final game of the World Cup and his career. He has to know the stakes. It was 2nd OT and only minutes away from a shootout. Zidane is the best PK man for his team, having already scored one earlier in the game. Of course, Italy won in the shootout. Who was the only man to miss a France PK? Zidane's replacement!

This incident is a perfectly appropriate conclusion to a flawed World Cup. It clearly illustrates the HUGE problem that plagued Germany 2006. Referees call fouls for every dive a player makes, leading to even more dives to induce a foul. If a player makes an especially dramatic dive, its a card. The cards plagued the Cup like never before. Meanwhile, off-the-ball mugging continues. Unfortunately for Zidane, it took approximately 6 games, 110 minutes before he could take it no more. Apparently, he was being assaulted at all times during the game, but the additional comments made by Materazzi must have done it. Several reports state it was a racist comment (dirty terrorist), but Zidane will probably never comment. In any case, Zidane is the goat. Hopefully, an upcoming FIFA summit proposed by Franz Beckenbauer will address some of the issues we have discussed ad nauseum on this blog.