The final starts ominously for France as it appears Henry suffers a concussion two minutes in. He’s helped to the sideline and returns, but one wonders what it portends. Then Zidane scores a penalty off the top bar to give France a 1-0 leads. One stops wondering.
In the 19th minute heavy Italian pressure gets a corner which the taller Italians capitalize on to knot the score at 1-1.
France mainly has the run of play in what is a very exciting match, but Viera limps off early in the second half, Henry cramps in overtime and gets subbed, and, inexplicably, Zidane head-butts an Italian player and gets thrown out with a straight red. He’d not had the best of games this time around, but I would’ve probably named him player of the tourney until this disaster. Now I don’t know.
In the end, France goes down 5-3 on PKs, but it’s hard not to feel like France and Zidane in particular didn’t just throw the game away. Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. The horrible, flopping Italians are world champions.