The End of the Cup
The World Cup 2006 finally came to a nail-biting finish with Italy taking the honors via a penalty kick shootout, only the second final to be decided thus. France was extremely unlucky to lose especially after dominating the play and making almost thrice the number of shots at the goal compared to Italy.
However, the most tragic incident was the red card given to Zidane and regardless of what the Italian must have said, his actions were uncalled for. What a way to end an otherwise brilliant career. I didn’t even see him on the victory podium collecting the runners-up medal. He may have helped France ressurect during this World Cup but he will be unfortunately remembered just for this incident.
The Italians proved that shoring up your defense will get you the top honors in the end even if you are plagued by a demoralizing bribery scandal back home. I lost my faith in the Italian side after that unsportsman-like dive in the penalty box in the dying minutes against Australia. For similar reasons, I have always hated Maradona for his ‘Hand of God’ in spite of his unmatchable football skills.
Personally, it has been an exciting month for me watching the games mostly at restaurants and bars; inhaling second-hand smoke and cheering with rambunctious Brazilian and Italian fans. Now it is back to my mundane academic life once again. Thankfully, one of my professors is an avowed Wimbeldon fan so any lack of work in the past month was mutually accepted. On the blogging front, my posts on the live streaming of the World Cup via the TVU player got me almost 30,000 hits and earned me three figure income in the Yahoo Publishing Network ads in the past month alone. So I guess, the FIFA World Cup experience was pretty good to me.
The Zidane head-butting incident:



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