July 9 - ZZ Top | On This Football Day

FOOTBALL’S unpredictability is one of the reasons we all love it so much. While there are some certainties in the beautiful game, like the reaction Robbie Savage gets at every ground in the country, or the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson still looks like a complete berk when celebrating despite twenty years of practice; the great thing about football is that no one knows what is going to happen.

The bookies have a good guess, pundits seem to predict what people want to hear and the papers will say anything if it helps them sell a few more copies, but no one actually knows.

The 2006 World Cup in Germany was a case in point. Although we could rely on that old certainty of England’s quarter final exit on penalties, few people expected Italy to reach the final as they came into the tournament just after the worst match-fixing scandal ever to hit the game.

But reach the final they did, and it was on this very day that they beat France to win their fourth World Cup. The match is of course remembered for far more than Italy’s win - France captain Zinedine Zidane saw to that. He had announced before the tournament that he would retire at the end of it, most thought his powers were fading fast, but he had a stormer of a World Cup and virtually dragged the French to the final, seemingly reinvigorated by one last challenge.

The stage was set for a a fairy tale end for Zizou: the World Cup final would be his last ever match before his retirement, and he had been playing out of his skin so far. Surely he would lead his team to victory.

Sure enough, an early penalty put away by Zidane seemed to suggest the match was following the Holywood script until Marco Materazzi scored for Italy to level the game. As the game wore on and went into extra time Zidane nearly won it but his header was tipped over by Buffon.

Then drama. Zidane suddenly turned, ran at Materazzi and headbutted him in the chest. Everyone was stunned and Zidane was sent off. As he left a football field for the last time ever he walked past the World Cup trophy that he had come so agonisingly close to winning. Instead, his last act in the professional game being sent off in the biggest match in the world.

Some British tabloids hired lip readers to try to ascertain what Materazzi had said to Zidane to provoke the response but after the Italian defender recently won legal proceedings against The Sun for their suggestions of what he said, we are steering well clear of that one.

In the penalty shootout that followed, France, without their captain and first choice spot kick taker, lost the shootout and the World Cup to Italy.

See the whole incident below and come back tomorrow when we will have another tale of footballing frolics from yesteryear.