For the record: Italy vs France

World Cup Final Italy 1 - 1 France (5-3 pens)
Materazzi, 19; Zidane, 7 (pen)
Rob Smyth Sunday July 9, 2006 in Guardian
0:00 Henry, looking the other way, runs right into Cannavaro after 35 seconds and is flat out on the deck. The stretcher's on, and he looks like he's concussed. In fact, he looks like a boxer who's gone 12 rounds with Smyth. Blimey, this could be a big problem. How cruel would this be on Henry? Cannavaro certainly stiffened his body for the contact although, as Turner points out, that was as much for self-protection as anything.
3 mins "The Fiver gets amention in today's Toronto Star," says Steven Sutherland, "and I quote 'The Guardian's merciless Fiver crew noted that Zizou is the Bob Marley of soccer universally admired respected and Loved'." I always wanted to be part of a merciless crew, and the Rochester Mass if never quite cut it.
4 mins Henry is back on after recoiling at some rancid-looking and indeed rancid-smelling smelling salts. Maybe it'll be a Devon Malcolm 1994 style knock on the head for him.
5 mins Zambrotta is booked for absolutely cleaning out Vieira on the edge of the France box.
6 mins: PENALTY TO FRANCE! Henry knocked on Barthez's clearance and, as Malouda burst through from the left past Cannavaro, Materazzi came across him. If there was contact - and I'm not sure there was, becauseMaterazzi tried to pull out - it was extremely minimal, but Malouda went over and the referee gave it. In fact Malouda might have tripped over his own feet there. Either way, it looks very harsh on Italy.
GOAL! France 1 Italy 0 (Zidane 7 pen)
Oh. My. God. I'm sorry, but you just can't take a penalty like this in a World Cup final. That was unbelievable! As Buffon dived to his right, Zidane gently kissed it straight down the middle, it looped onto the undersideof the bar and drifted over the line before bouncing back out into play. At first there was doubt, and Zidane celebrated sheepishly, but it was definitely over the line. Unbelievable impudence and class from Zidane, who flirted with making a right numpty of himself like Gary Lineker did against Brazil in 1992, and what a game we have now. And what a goal!
9 mins A cross is whipped in from the right, and Materazzi backheads it from the edge of the box towards his own goal. It was going wide, but Buffon made sure.
10 mins "Which two players from the four naughty Italian clubs would you buy on the cheap for your team outta interest?" asks Alex Banks. Gattuso and... Gattuso, just in case the dog ate one of them.
12 mins Sagnolis booked for introducing his studs to Grosso.
14 mins The game is suffering from shell-shock at the moment, with both teams seemingly surprised by the early goal. But here's a free-kick on the right for Italy: the improbably handsome Pirlo flips it into a beautiful area, and a diving Thuram heads it past his ownnear post from four yards. Corner leads to nowt.
16 mins The intrepid Grosso gets into a nice position wide on the left... and shanks his cross into Austria.
17 mins" Zidane is looking more and more like Mr. Spock with each game," says Tico Arregui. "Not showing any emotion while scoring in a world cup final just confirms my suspicions." After that penalty, all I can say is that the force is strong in this one. That's Star Trek, right? GOAL! Italy 1 France 1 (Materazzi19)
Justice is done with a thumping header from Marco Materazzi. The improbably handsome Pirlo swung in a lovely, booming corner from the right, and Materazzi took a majestic running jump above Vieira before absolutely battering a header into the net from eight yards. A superb goal, although Barthez was neither outfor it or on his line, like a batsman caught on the crease. Materazzi used to play for Everton, you know.
22 mins Italy are bossing this at the moment; they just look more virile, and France seem a little stunned that Plan A - score, defend ridiculously well, win 1-0 - has had to be shelved. There's a whiff of imminent petulance about them at the moment.
26 mins Henry skins Totti beautifully and slides Ribery in on the right. His low, Overmarsian cross is bundled away for a corner, which comes to nought.
27 mins It's all gone quiet over there. Miguel Batista, who may or may not be from Portugal, notes with frustration that Zidane has already dived thrice tonight and nobody has said a word. As I haven't said aword, I'm clearly part of the conspiracy - but he's right, and it's another indication of the absurdity of this disgraceful Ronaldo thing we've got going on right now.
28 mins Materazzi's header, from Pirlo's corner, is kicked off the line by Thuram. The ref gave a soft foul for a push by Materazzi, but he's the main attacking threat on the field at the moment. At both ends.
29 mins France are looking old.
30 mins "Lion-hearted challenge from Gattuso," says Clive Tyldesley, delving into his Bloody Big Book Of Player-Related Cliches to describe a routine interception that even Darren Fletcher could have made.
32mins Italy are better, more vibrant, but it's as we expected it would be now, only with a goal extra each on the scoreboard.
33 mins Ribery inadvertently palms off Perrotta in the love curdler, and he's down and wincing. Actually he didn't touch Perrotta's swingers, he just trod on his toe by accident.
35 mins Ribery backs into Materazzi in the box and falls over. The Foreign Referee Wot Sent Wayne Off rightly gives Italy a free-kick.
36 mins Italy nearly score twice! First Totti feathered it infield to Gattuso, who slid a marvellous, short-range pass between defenders for Toni, and Thuram got across to desperately block his shot. From the resulting corner, an outswirler from Pirlo, Toni got above Thuram and thumped a header off the crossbar.
40 mins Aside from that stunning and impudent and very nearly hilarious buggerlugsed penalty, Zidane hasn't been in this game at all, save for the odd dive.
41 mins Camera cuts to a fairly beautiful French lady in the crowd. As various single men cry inside at what become of their lives, Clive Tyldesley announces: "some need make-up more than others". Say what you see, Clive.
42 mins It's hard to know if Henry has fully recovered from his run-in with Cannavaro in the first minute; he has been very quiet, but he has such genius that you can't ever safely write him off as a complete, whinging big-game bottler until he's bottled the entire 90 minutes.
43 mins A good spell for France, with Zidane and Henry combining to release Ribery on the left wing. A split-second later he's surrounded by 194 Italian defenders, and away it goes.
45 mins We're getting paid by the minute.
45 mins+1 Abidal does a comedy, soap-in-the-bath foul throw.
Half time
It's been an okayyyy half, with Italy the better side. France took the lead with a dodgy, early penalty, converted with preposterous calm by Zidane, but Italy deservedly equalised when Marco Materazzi showed what he'd learned on Merseyside by nutting home a cracking equaliser from a corner. Toni then hit the bar - also from a corner - and Italy have certainly shaded it. They are younger and hungrier, and unless Henry does something magical I think theywill eventually impose their will decisively on this game. On reflection There is contact on Malouda by Materazzi, and that causes Malouda's right leg to hit the back of his left leg, and down he goes. It certainly wasn't a dive, and I reckon it was a penalty. Albeit soft. Ish. Italy's goal maybe shouldn't have stood deparment Pirlo's corner for the goal went very close to going out of play befor swinging back in/out.
Is Zidane rubbish? "Don't you think it's slightly ridiculous that people are putting zizou up there with Pelé and Maradona?" says Miguel Batista. "I don't think he would crack the Brazilian 1982 team. He scored twice in the World Cup final in 1998, yes, and he won plenty at Juve, with all the [alleged] chemical advantages that entails, but he only shined truly, fully and consistently at Euro 2000, is that enough?
Methinks not..." People don't put Zidane up with Pele and Maradona, do they? High in the second tier, but below the Pele/Maradona/Collymore types, seems fair to me.
46 mins Off we go again.
46 mins (reprise) Henry bundles his way through the inside-left channel, but his side foot from 12yards is straight at Buffon. Italy weren't happy, because Malouda was down and Henry didn't kick the ball out. The same Henry who was part of the Arsenal team who went ballistic over a not dissimilar incident against Spurs last season.
49 mins More fast work from Grosso wins Italy a corner. It's taken short by Totti and, when he crosses the return into the six-yard box, Cannavaro jack-knifes to head goalwards and Gallas blocks.
50 mins Glorious run from Henry, using first muscle then grace, takes him past three defenders and into the box. He squares it invitingly across the six-yard line, and Zambrotta welts it to safety. Henry looks much livelier this half.
52 mins Malouda down the line to Abidal, whose cut-back finds Henry 16 yards out. He fronts upCannavaro, and waits and waits and waits for Cannavaro to sit down; he does, butthe Italian captain still manages to clear while on all fours like a dog, panting.
53 mins Wonderful move from France, and they might have had a penalty at the end of it. It starts with Henry's touch down the line to Ribery, who hurries it infield to Zidane. He stabs it down the inside-left channel to Malouda, who is bundled over by Zambrotta on the corner of the six-yard box. It was a messy little collision, but Zambrotta got nothing on the ball.

55 mins France are all over Italy at the moment, and Malouda's low cross is just behind Ribery, six yards out and with an open net shouting 'welt one at me, sugar, hard as ya like'.
56 mins: France substitution Vieira is limping off with a hamstring strain - there was nobody near him as he pulled up, and former Liverpool bench-warmer Alou Diarra, now of Lens, is coming on.
58 mins Zidane's volley from the edge of the box is blocked by Pirlo. France are ALL OVER Italy.
59 mins Italy just can't keep the ball - Furio Camoranesi, who's had a poor game, proves the point by lumping that to nobody - and Lippi might have to do something here. Del Piero for Totti?
61 mins Lippi is indeed doing something x2: Perrotta and the sadly peripheral Totti off, Iaquinta and Don De Rossi on. Not the face!
62 mins: Italy goal disallowed! Straight after the substitutions, Italy have a goal disallowed. It was a free-kick curled in from deep on the left, and Toni nailed a magnificent header past Barthez and low into the corner from 16 yards. I don't think he was offside you know; there was a cluster of strikers and defenders, and some inactive strikers were certainly offside, but Toni was a really tight call.
63 mins Makelele presents Henry with his dream scenario, one-on-one with the last man Cannavaro. He goes left then right and slaps a shot towards goal from 14 yards, but Buffon plunges to this left to palm away. At the other end, seconds later, Toni's shot is blocked by Gallas. Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong.
65 mins Nobody can reasonably argue that this hasn't been the best World Cup final since 2002. 66 mins Italy have apparently gone 4-5-1 with Iaquinta wide right, De Rossi wide left, and Furio Camoranesi tucked infield. And it's given them a foothold in the game, after 15 minutes in which they were run ragged.
70 mins It's usually this time when Wiltord starts to limp on for Malouda or Ribery, but France are playing with such authority and - yes - vigour that the temptation must be to keep it as it is for now. Ribery is brought down by Cannavaro on the left...
71 mins ... And Zidane's free-kick is flapped loosely away by Buffon. When the ball comes back in, Cannavaro pays homage to ZZ Top frontman Brian Kilcline with a shanked clearance. France are turning the screw again.
72 mins Poor Cannavaro is starting to look a bit besieged, and he was lucky to get awaywith chopping Malouda then.
73 mins Luca Toni forces a smart save from Coco The Clown, low to his left, but he'd been rightly penalised for handball. And now he's down injured - I think he got crunched in the act of shooting.
74 mins I have a horrible feeling Thierry Henry is going to score the winner here.
76 mins A dangerous free-kick from Zidane, wide on the left, floats over everyone and zoots away for a goal-kick. Malouda does a Cristiano Ronaldo-style leap/dive before looking longingly to the ref. Nobody makes a dartboard with his face on it.
76 mins Diarra is booked for, erm, he's booked for, erm, very little in fact. He went up for a long ball with Toni, using his arm for leverage like you do, and after the ball hit his hand he got booked for the ball hitting his hand. Handball they call it.
77 mins Pirlo flashes the free-kick just - just - wide of the near post, but I think Barthez had it covered. Just.
78 mins We're inthat pre-extra-time period where it's more important not to concede than to score.
80 mins Zidane is down with a shoulder injury after being the subject of a ball-and-man headed clearance from the indefatigable Cannavaro. He was helped off, but now he's back on. They'll regret that if he inexplicably plants the heed on someone 19 minutes into extra-time.
82 mins See 78 mins.
83 mins Zambrotta chests a dangerous Sagnol cross for a France corner. Zidane flips it in; it's headed away. Ribery scuffs it back; it's headed away.
85 mins Henry skins Zambrotta beautifully on the left, gets to the byline, and his cut back is whipped - well, bludgeoned - off Zidane's toe by Materazzi. It's mostly France, as it has been for almost all of the second half.
87 mins: Italy substitution Oasis groupie Del Piero comes on for Furio Camoranesi. As he sprints on, Zidane flips in a corner that would have gone straight in but for someone's header at the near post. So Italy have used all three substitutions; France, perversely looking the fresher despite their average age of 87, still have two to play.
89 mins Iaquinta almost gets on to a precise long pass from Pirlo, but a combination of Abidal and Thuram shut the door on the edge of the box. But it's an isolated break and Italy are looking very leggy, Like a knackered Elle MacPherson, you probably wouldn't say.
90 mins Italy are gone here. I don't know why, apart from the mental and physical demands of, like, seven games in a month, but they looks hot. But when Ribery lifts an ostensibly inviting pass across the six-yard box, nobody else is in the box and Buffon claims.
Full time And it'll be extratime.
France were much better in the second half, but Italy's defensive excellence limited them to few chances. Italy lost a final on penalties in 1994; it can't happen again. Can it?
91 mins We're off again.
93 mins Malouda, who has had his best game of the tournament by a mile, wins a corner. Zambrotta wellies it clear.
94 mins If any team scoreshere it will be France, who have an arm-lock on the game, but I'm predicting penalties. If France DO lose on penalties, they will be full of regrets because they are as in control of this match as you could ever wish to be in a World Cup final.
Which is not that much, cos it's a World Cup final between two bloody good teams, but it's still a lot. But they are not really going for it as they might, or as they did in that Euro 2000 final, when Italy were even more shot than this.
95 mins Malouda nutmegs Cannavaro on the edge of the box, but Gattuso covers wonderfully well.
99 mins (reprise) Oof! Ribery, coming in from the left, plays a one-two with Malouda on the edge of the box and toe bungs JUST wideof the far post. It's his last contribution: he's coming off for Trezeguet, who brings out Italians in as cold a sweat as Ole Solskjaer does Bayern Munich fans after that famous night in Barcelona.
101 mins Makelele is probably the only person on the planet who can have sex anonymously and still do it brilliantly; he has been immaculate tonight. Always is.
103 mins Italy's attacks are an afterthought, like a man who knows he is serving for Wimbledon with the next game and just lets his opponent rush through his service game. Italy's task now is to hang on for penalties; defending is their service game and they don't mind what happens when they attack.
104 mins Nearly the fairytale finish. Sagnol crosses from the right and Zidane, unmarked, thumps a header towards goal from 12 yards. It was central, but his old Juve team-mateBuffon still did really well to arch back and paw it over the bar. A very good save.
Half-time in extra-time
106 mins Off we scoot again. Fifteen minutes to comply, or it's penalties.
107 mins De Rossi gets (probably accidentally) elbowed in the face by Malouda.
France substitution: Wiltord for Henry
108 mins What made a huge difference in this game, I think, is that Malouda and Ribery were suddenly energised after half-time, and it engaged Zambrotta and Grosso so much that they couldn't get forward like they usually do.
109 mins: ZIDANE SENT OFF FOR STICKING THE HEED ON MATERAZZI!!
Oh. My. God. In his final professional match, Zidane had been sent off for a disgraceful headbutt on Materazzi. He just rammed his head into Materazzi's chest; it was really firm and nasty. Horrible.
Now that really is a headbutt. It was also completely off the ball and at first it seemed he'd got away with it, but after talking to his assistant - and possibly after an intervention from the fourth official - the referee was alerted to what happened, and sent Zidane off.
He has always had a nasty streak, but this was just ridiculous. What on earth did Materazzi say to provoke that? Either way, it was a disgusting, nasty, blackly comic headbutt, delivered with a Hitchcokian suddenness, and it's an unbelievable ending to Zidane's lustrous career. It was a JFK moment and a GBH moment rolled into one oh-my-giddy-auntmoment.
And he could still end up lifting the World Cup!
111 mins Malouda was booked as well, and I have nothing to say.
Domenech, who obviously didn't see the incident (insert your own French-managers-usually-don't gag here), clapped the referee sarcastically.
113 mins Italy, suddenly, are invigorated and going for it, but I doubt there's enough in the tank to force a winner.
115 mins Replays show that Materazzi's crime was to, erm, tweak Zidane's nipple. I kidyou not. Tyldesley, the Zidane lover, is now launching into the darker spots of Materazzi's CV, but he's a fool: Zidane is slap bang out of order, kinky nipple tweak or no nipple tweak.
117 mins France have done well with 10 men, and are keeping the ball.
Italy don't have the legs to drive the play on, and all the players have accepted penalties - Gattuso even gives Malouda a big arm round the shoulder there.
119 mins It's Grosso territory, but Italy can't get tbe ball and it's penalties - just one minute of added time, despite two minutes being used up for the Zidane thing.
120 mins Malouda, who has been increasingly heroic, frees Wiltord on the right of the box. He falls over and slaps it miles over. It's penalties Just like it was in 1994.
hard to do justice to just how horrible that headbutt was - you instinctively recoil like you're the victim; it's brutal, you can feel the teeth grinding as he rams into Materazzi. You feel your eyelids instinctively magnetising with every replay; it's as unwatchable as that bit inScream when Drew Barrymore has her little skinny tummy sliced and diced.
Thatreally, erm, put the 'no!' in 'denouement'. Or maybe it was denouemental. I don't know; I'm tired. But it makes for the most spectacular drama. And now we have a lot more drama - penalties.
Here we go It's Italy to go first - it'llbe Pirlo, who missed against Liverpool in the 2005 final in which noted sportsman Jamie Carragher encouraged the referee to send Nesta off and thenchuckled about it.
Italy 1 - 0 France
The improbably handsome Pirlo scores, clipping it lazily down the middle. Italy 1 - 1 France It's Wiltord... and he scores immaculately, to Buffon's left as Italy's Alice-band-loving keeper divedthe other way.
Italy 2 - 1 France Despite cacophonous boos from the France fans, Materazzi scores magnificently, firm and low to Barthez's left. A replica of Stuart Pearce's penalty against Spain in 1996, but without the COME ON! Barthez dived the right way but he was getting nowhere near it.
Italy 2 - 1 France Trezeguet misses! It hit the underside of the crossbar, but this time it bounced the right side of the line for Italy.
Italy 3 - 1 France De Rossi scores majestically! That was a wonderful penalty, slammed high into the unsaveable zone to Barthez's right. He dived the right way but etc and so forth.
Italy 3 - 2 France Abidal scores coolly, placing it to his left as Buffon divedto his left.
Italy 4 - 2 France Del Piero scores, highish to Barthez's right, and Sagnol has to score here or it's all over.
Italy 4 - 3 France Sagnol slams it violently in, high to Buffon's left, and it's now all down to Grosso. If hescores, Italy will displace that nugget DiCaprio in Titanic as kings of the world. ITALY WIN THE WORLD CUP! Grosso scores!
He was cucumber-cool, sidefooting it to Barthez's left, and Italy have finally come out the right sideof a World Cup penalty shoot-out.
I'm delighted for them, and not only because I tipped them; their boyish disbelief is beautiful, and I can't remember seeing any team look quite so happy at winning a World Cup. It continues Italy's 12-year cycle: lost a final in 70, won in 82, lost a final in 94, won in 06.
Although France were the better teamon the night, few could argue that Italy have been the best team in thetournament.
(Apart from Argentina, who were amazing until their manager bottled it completely.)
Ever since that Totti penalty against Australia this has felt like Italy's destiny, and so it proved. For Zinedine Zidane, however, there is only ignominy, after he was sent off for an truly extraordinary act of violenceon Marco Materazzi.
Tournaments often get the finals they deserve, and this one did: it was not actually that good, but it produced some absolutely wonderful drama.