Here's the report:France 1 Italy 1 (after extra-time)Seriously, they were lucky to even get there if you ask me. They were starring down the barrel of the gun against Australia. France cracked under the pressure. I mean, a win is a win, but they were lucky they got out of jail twice having played fairly negative games.
(Italy won 5-3 on penalties)
ITALY exorcised the demons of 1994 in emphatic style this morning, winning a fourth World Cup final by defeating France in a shoot-out after having been outplayed for much of the match.
Italy, with a 0-3 record in World Cup shoot-outs - having lost the 1994 final against Brazil, in the only previous final shoot-out; a 1990 semi-final against Argentina; and a 1998-quarter-final against France – this time was faultless from the spot.
Andrea Pirlo, Marco Materazzi, Daniele De Rossi, Alessandro Del Piero and, finally, Fabio Grosso each held his nerve to give France goalkeeper Fabien Barthez no chance.
Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro said the victory would ease the pain of wide-ranging match-fixing scandals that have dragged his country's football reputation through the mud in recent months.
"Italy have wanted this for a long time and, coming after everything that has happened in the past few months, it was really needed,'' Cannavaro said.
"Its a fantastic feeling. My son asked to sleep in my bed last night, but I told him he could share it with me and the trophy soon."
Substitute France striker David Trezeguet, like Italy legend Roberto Baggio in 1994, will be remembered as the man who lost the final.
Baggio's chipped penalty, perhaps the most famous miss in shott-out history, went over the bar, but Trezeguet, who plays for scandal-hit Italian Serie A club, Juventus, saw his spot kick, France's second of the shoot-out, crashed back from the woodwork after Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon had dived the wrong way.
Sylvain Wiltord, Eric Abidal and Willy Sagnol were on target in the shoot-out for France, which will lament forever the fact that Zinedine Zidane, on target from the spot to give Les Bleus the lead in the first half, was not among the participants in the shoot-out.
Zidane, the legend who inspired France's final success against Brazil in 1998, and who drove Les Bleus through the knockout stages of Germany 2006 with a series of divine performances, suffered a terrible fate in the last match of his career, shamefully sent off in extra-time after he was given a straight red card for head-butting Materazzi after the Italy centre-back said something that clearly riled Zizou.
Perhaps frustration had something to do with Zidane's reaction for - the goal and an extra-time header, to which Buffon made a tremendous, acrobatic right-handed save, apart - the midfield master was subdued throughout, dominated by the marking of his Italy counterparts and unable to influence proceedings as he and France wanted.
"To see him finish his career in this way is sad. He has had a great career and a great World Cup." France coach Raymond Domenech said of Zidane.
Argentine referee Horacio Elizondo missed the headbutt but Buffon remonstrated furiously with the assistant referee, who called over the man in the middle.
After a lengthy consultation, the referee raced to the middle of the pitch and stunned Zidane with the red card.
How different the match seemed for France more than two hours earlier, when Zidane put Les Bleus ahead from the penalty spot.
Mr Elizondo gifted France the opportunity to open the scoring in the seventh minute, awarding a penalty kick after Materazzi had appeared to move across Florent Malouda.
Television replays showed that Materazzi, the man sent off in the second-round match against Australia, may have been unfortunate as he seemed to pull out of the challenge, but that mattered nought to Zidane, who sent Buffon the wrong way with a cheeky chipped penalty that crossed the goal line via the underside of the crossbar.
Italy was unbowed conceding its first goal by an opponent in the tournament – the only other goal it had conceded at that stage, in the 1-1 group-stage draw against the US, was an own goal by Cristian Zaccardo – and the Azzurri got back into the game as Pirlo dropped deeper to assume the playmaking role and Gennaro Gattuso won an increasing number of tackles.
Italy, which dominated the remainder of the first half, equalised from a Pirlo corner kick, Materazzi towering above his marker, Patrick Vieira, on the edge of the six-yard box to power a header past Barthez and midfield player Franck Ribery on the left goal post.
France experienced aerial trouble from set pieces throughout the game, and Italy was unlucky not to take the lead 10 minutes from half-time, striker Luca Toni this time climbing highest to meet a Pirlo corner only to see his header thump against the crossbar with Barthez beaten.
Toni thought he had scored in the 61st minute, heading the ball past Barthez from another free-kick, but the linesman cut short his celebration, raising the flag in a marginal decision.
In between those chances, France failed to deal with a short corner worked by Pirlo and Mauro Camoranesi, and centre-back William Gallas knew little about his clearance when Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro's goal-bound header hit him shortly after half-time.
France, with Zidane inspirational only by his presence on the pitch, nevertheless worked itself back into the match, dominating the remainder of play as Italy seemed to lose shape as it proved unable to retain possession.
Malouda on the left and Ribery on the right, and later more through the centre, began to get forward more, and their pace caused numerous problems for the Italy defence.
Ribery in the 51st minute sparked a sweeping counter-attack after Fabio Grosso lost the ball in an attacking position, breaking on the right before feeding Zidane, whose pass put Malouda into space in the penalty area.
If France was fortunate to be awarded its penalty kick in the first half, it was now unfortunate not to get a second as Italy right-back Granula Zumbrota clearly fouled the Frenchman without getting close to the ball.
Striker Thierry Henry, previously a peripheral figure, also began to drop deeper to collect the ball, and he forced Buffon into smart saves after dazzling runs on either side of the pitch, first skipping past four tackles on the left and then twisting and turning past Grosso, Camoranesi and Materazzi on the right.
Buffon had to drop smartly to his left to prevent another Henry shot in the 62nd minute, the effort coming after good work by Claude Micelle.
France continued to dominate in extra-time, with Ribery and Malouda continuing to cause Italy problems on the flanks.
The wide midfield players combined on the left 10 minutes into the first period of extra-time, exchanging passes on the edge of the penalty area to fashion a chance for Ribery, who stabbed a shot just wide of the right-hand goal post.
Domenech said he could not take any satisfaction from the fact that France outplayed Italy for long periods.
"I am deeply disappointed," he said.
"On the merits of the match, we deserved it.
"Only victory is beautiful and we missed out.
"We can say it wasn't too bad but it is the Italians who are the world champions. They played for the penalties because that was the only option for them."
Anyway, a final between France and Italy? I didn't bother to watch the thing because there's no way that both teams could lose. :)
Encroaching On Borg And Sampras
Meanwhile In Tennis, Roger Federer made it 4 Wimbledons in a row.
World No.1 Roger Federer has finally turned the tables on rival Rafael Nadal, ending a five-match losing streak against the Spaniard to claim the Wimbledon title for the fourth year in succession.Pretty amazing when you think about the likelihood of seeing 3 players of this calibre in one's own lifetime.
In their most recent battle Nadal had extended his winning streak on clay to 60 matches by defeating Federer to claim the French Open title for the second year in a row, but Nadal was unable to continue his dominance on Federer's preferred surface.
Federer made a brilliant start to the match and took the opening set without conceding a game, before the next two sets both went to tie-breakers, with Federer taking the second and Nadal the third, but it was Federer who went on to win 6-0 7-6 (7-5) 6-7 (2-7) 6-3.
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