Kruse Kronicle

Italy Perseveres

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by

mwkruse
in ,

The World Cup winner is Italy in five penalty kicks after a 1-1 tie. They looked more tired and less on their game than France through much of the match, but with super defense, they persevered.

Then there was the French self-destruct at the end of the game. With ten minutes left in overtime and how things were going, French team captain Zinedine Zidane knew there was a good chance they would go to penalty kicks. As captain, he should have been rallying his team to victory. So what did he do? He head-butted a player in the chest away from the ball, knocking him flat to the ground, apparently because of something the opposing player said. He was red-carded, meaning he was ejected from the game, leaving his team to play ten minutes with one less man and without their captain and best player in the final of a World Cup watched by one billion viewers. I'll say this, when the guy decides to meltdown, he does a bang-up job of it.

Nevertheless, Italy won it on their own. Kudos to the Italians! It was a great World Cup.

Comments

2 responses to “Italy Perseveres”

  1. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    Michael, I don’t know how you can think Italy won it on their own! It was a clear self-destruct on the part of France. I’m thankful for several French friends who will inform me of Zidane’s reasons for getting so aggrevated, since I doubt the US press will carry any more World Cup stories.
    Anytime a game comes to penalties its a crap shoot. Neither keeper saved a goal but the French missed one penalty (they have had two others during regulation)

    Reply
  2. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Well personally I thought France outplayed Italy most of the game except when it came to the most critical part: scoring or stopping goals. I didn’t think there was a foul on France’s penalty kick and Buffon did a great job deflecting Zidane’s head ball. Outside of those two events, I don’t remember France really making a serious run at a goal. Italy scored their goal and just missed a second by being a fraction offside. Italy looked less sharp and more tired but they did what they had to do to win. When it came to scoring goals or stopping them, I think France got the breaks and that was the only reason there was a tie in the first place.
    I am not saying France couldn’t have won but I saw nothing that showed me they were going to do any better in the last ten minutes than they did in the first 110 at scoring a goal. In fact, France was beginning to look exhausted as well. I think it is very likely we would have been in penatly kicks as it was, which is, as you said, a crap shoot. I guess what I am saying is that Zidane might have been able to help them win but I don’t think he caused them to lose (if that makes any sense.) Italy caused them to lose.
    I will be interested to learn more about what provoked the out burst but since it was only the two of them in on the converstation, I wonder if we will ever really know the truth.

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