Materazzi’s goal:

Zidane’s sending off:

Cannavaro lifting the World Cup:

Things kicked off with Thierry Henry hitting a wall with the name Cannavaro written on it right from the 1st minute. The Frenchman needed a couple of minutes to recover from that.

France took the lead after a shady penalty after a foul on Malouda by Materazzi. Zidane executed it not without emotions. The ball went in though. 0-1 France.

Italy started to press for the equalizer and after a couple of fantastic corners by Andrea Pirlo, which is my man of the match for last night, scored with a header by Marco Materazzi. 1-1. The same Materazzi hit the post after another corner from Pirlo minutes later.

The second half was a bit on the side of caution. Thierry Henry had a couple of good actions but Buffon was excellent. The Italians replied to that with a 30 metres free-kick from Pirlo, who went awfully close from the goal post.

Extra time followed. The French had the biggest chance here, with Zidane heading very well Sagnol’s cross from the right, but Buffon managed a fantastic save. Marco Matterazzi managed to piss the hell off Zidane in the 2nd half with some well placed words and the latter reacted, angrily, stupidly and foolishly by headbutting the Italian in the chest. The Argentinian ref didn’t see it at first but he was alerted by the linesmen or the 4th ref. Red card for Zidane and that’s how it ends the International career of one of the world’s best players.

Penalties ensued. Italy first with Pirlo. This man couldn’t possibly miss. 1-0 Italy. Now we fast-forward right to Trezeguet’s penalty. The Argentinian born Frenchman hits the post and the ball refuses to go in! Finally Grosso scores Italy’s 5th penalty kick and the Italians are world champions!

Congratulations to Italy for a job well done. Cannavaro is, without a shadow of a doubt now that Zidane screwed up big time, man of the tournament.

The match was fairly entertaining. Portugal had a better start but didn’t make anything out of it. Germany balanced the game and took the lead though. At the start of the second half, Schweinsteiger scored with the big help of Ricardo after a 25 metres shot.

Later in the game another shot from the same Schweinsteiger, without a doubt man of the match, got deflected by Petit and ended up behind Ricardo, in the net.

Arguably the play of the night came from the same Schweinsteiger (third time I write this name in this post; gotta say my fingers are tired) who blasted another one of his long range shots - this time perfectly. Ricardo couldn’t do a thing.

The boy was replaced by Klinsmann shortly after so he’d get a standing ovation.

The Portuguese scored their single goal after a fantastic cross by Figo (5th assist out of the 7 Portuguese goals at this World Cup; he’ll be severely missed from world football; there’s still time for him to slap around C. Ronaldo a bit though, put some sense into this guy) from the right, calmly headed by Nuno Gomes past Kahn.

That’s was about it. I didn’t get to see the ceremony. The Chinese agency Xinhua has got some photos though.

Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
Andrea Pirlo (Italy)
Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy)
Gianluigi Buffon (Italy)
Thierry Henry (France)
Patrick Vieira (France)
Zinedine Zidane (France)
Michael Ballack (Germany)
Miroslav Klose (Germany)
Maniche (Portugal)

Here’s my personal preference so far, a personal preference that’ll change only if Zidane will do an extraordinary final while Cannavaro will struggle (highly unlikely for the latter to happen):

1. Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
2. Zinedine Zidane (France)
3. Patrick Vieira (France)
4. Gianluigi Buffon (Italy)
5. Andrea Pirlo (Italy)
6. Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy)
7. Miroslav Klose (Germany)
8. Thierry Henry (France)
9. Maniche (Portugal)
10. Michael Ballack (Germany)

Here we go:

*first rankings based on new system to be released on July 12th
*new rankings are a combination of “transparency and simplicity” plus “sporting criteria and statistical requirements”, or so they say
*new rankings will only count the results from the past four years and not eight, as it did so far
*the other factors - “result, importance of match, strength of opponents, regional strength, number of matches considered” - were “tested, analysed and, in some cases, totally revised”
*two of the previous factors - goals scored and home advantage - will become obsolete

That’s about it. For those who want to read the press release in full, here it is.

Cristiano Ronaldo tried his luck again in the first half with another blatant dive inside the penalty box. Tough luck though; the Uruguayan ref knew his type. It is worth mentioning that the Manchester United crybaby wasn’t affected too much that he was whistled every single time he got hold of the ball.

In the second half Portugal tried to push France in their box but without much effect. They gave up on one of their defensive midfielders and introduced another striker - Helder Postiga - and in the last minutes of the game they’ve placed Fernando Meira as third striker. The end was somewhat of the thriller though, with GK Ricardo travelling to the other end of the pitch for a few corner kicks.

1-0 France and we’ve got ourselves a repeat of the Euro 2000 final.

Del Piero’s goal:

The only major German action in the first 90 minutes was Podolski’s shot from the box, but Buffon managed to save it quite easily.

But let’s get to extra-time, shall we. Two minutes in, and squadra azzurra already hit the post twice, first by Gilardino trying to put the ball wisely left of Lehman at the short corner and then by Zambrotta after a powerful shot from the external edge of the box.

In the second half of extra-time, Germany almost managed to grab a winner on a counter but Borowski’s (was it him? can’t remember exactly) shot got an excellent reflex as reply from the world’s best goalkeeper.

Things were slowly going to penalty kicks - clearly something the Germans would’ve enjoyed - but given their track record at penalty kicks, the Italians decided they should give it an extra push for the remaining couple of minutes. And did they? Hell yeah they did. First off, Pirlo got a ball at the edge of the box and managed to fool Germany’s defence into thinking that he was going to pass on the wing by looking that way, yet he sends the most exquisite of passes right in the box to Grosso who manages to bend it fantastically (I’ll be back with the goals). 0-1 Italy and with one minute left, things were almost set.

But this ain’t it. After a short an ineffective German attack, Pirlo launches Gilardino on the counter after a fantastic interception by Cannavaro and the Milan man calmly assist Del Piero at the edge of the box. 0-2 Italy. Game over.

(click to enlarge)

This one was after Pippo Inzaghi scored the 2-0 goal vs. Czech Republic. Gattuso was probably trying to fix Lippi’s head towards Inzaghi, telling him that he’d better play him more often if he wants to live. Apparently, Lippi hadn’t thought much of Rino’s advice.

As for this one, what could I possibly say other than the old boring cliche that “it’s worth a thousand words”? No comment.

That and more Crouchspottings ™ can be found on this fan site.

Germany vs. Italy and Portugal vs. France in the semifinals. Zidane won’t be able to breathe this easily against Portugal, but given France’s defensive midfield duo, they still have the upper hand in this duel.

Europe will tie the score 9-9 vs. South America after this World Cup is finished.

Here’s a report from Slam Sports (click for full story):

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Just one shot on goal. Was that really Brazil out there?

Maybe a team of lookalike Ronaldinhos and Ronaldos took the field against France on Saturday and meekly gave up their World Cup title after a 1-0 loss.

The Ronaldo impersonator did a few stepovers and the Ronaldinho double tried a few weaving runs.

But the real Ronaldo would have left the ball in the back of the French net instead of tumbling to get a free kick. The genuine Ronaldinho wouldn’t have been repeatedly stifled by French tacklers.

With South American rival Argentina out of the way after a penalty shootout loss to Germany on Friday, Brazil had a great chance to go all the way and win a sixth World Cup title.

“It’s a difficult moment to be eliminated when we were so close to the semifinals and final,” Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said. “I did not prepare for this and no one in our delegation prepared for this.”

Can’t remember where I got it from; contact me and I’ll add the source if you know.

Too bad it’s Portugal that forced them to pack their bags though. If Brazil beats France tonight then it’s going to be one hell of a semifinal between Scolari and his ex-team. It’ll be interesting to see whether big Phil will manage to tactically outsmart the Selecao since I’m quite sure he knows many of their weaknesses (e.g.: Ronaldo - chocolate, etc.).

Here’s a report from someone that saw the game:

GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany, July 1 (UPI) — Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo saved three penalty kicks and Cristiano Ronaldo drove home the decisive shot in a 3-1 penalty kick World Cup victory over England.

Portugal moves into the World Cup semifinal Wednesday against either Brazil or France, which were set to play later Saturday. Germany and Italy are paired in the other semifinal.

Ricardo has allowed just one goal in five World Cup games this year and kept England off the scoreboard for 120 minutes to force the penalty-kick situation.

After Portugal’s Simao Sabrosa converted the first penalty kick, Ricardo stopped a try from Frank Lampard. Portugal missed its next two attempts and England tied the situation at 1-1 with a shot from Owen Hargreaves that reached the back of the goal even though Ricardo got a hand on it.

But Ricardo next saved a shot from Steven Gerrard. England’s Jamie Carragher made a shot, but kicked before the referee said things were ready and had to try again. This time Ricardo blocked the shot to the left.

Ronaldo confidently moved to the penalty spot and sealed the victory with a shot high in the goal.

England played from the 62nd minute a man down as Wayne Rooney was sent off for some late kicks after tussling with Portugal’s Ricardo Carvalho and Ronaldo.