Destiny kind to tired team

World Cup Final: Sadly, this World Cup final will forever be remembered more for the sending-off of Zidane than for anything else. Let me say it straight away, Zidane deserved to go, it was a clear red-card offence and the Argentinian referee Horacio Elizondo had no option but to send him off.

I know this morning that people will be saying the Italian defender Marco Materazzi said all manner of unpleasant things to him. Maybe Materazzi did but that does not excuse a player of Zidane's experience, playing in his very last game.

It is also true that the referee himself did not see the incident but again that does not matter. Nor does it matter if the referee's assistant did not see it; someone appears to have seen it and it was there for all the world to see on the many replays.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the spectators at the Olympiastadion did not see it and it left them feeling that Materazzi had been up to a bit of trickery or thuggery and got Zidane sent off cheaply. That, too, left a bitter taste at the end of the game, with the crowd whistling and jeering the Italians.

The Zidane incident cast a big shadow over the game. I thought France were probably the better team over the 120 minutes. Zidane was a revelation. If you had seen him playing for Real Madrid towards the end of the season, you would simply not have believed what we saw last night.

He was back to his very best. The way he took the opening penalty was the style of a great champion, full of confidence and self-belief. He must have sat for a long time in the French dressing-room last night, asking himself just what he had one and just how he had so completely managed to ruin what would otherwise have been a magnificent finale to a fantastic career.

The other thing that this final will be remembered for, of course, is the Italian penalty kicks. They failed in a penalty shoot-out in the 1994 final and at the quarter-final stage of 1998, so when it went to penalties, I really fancied the French to win. Yet the Italians this time stepped up and knocked home five out of five like they had become Germans overnight.

Having been full of praise for the Italians throughout this tournament, I have to say they disappointed me last night. Whereas they were very positive in other games, they tended to sit back and not risk very much the more the game went on. I know Marcello Lippi ended up with Vincenzo Iaquinta, Alessandro Del Piero and Luca Toni up front but he was telling his full backs to be careful in the second half and in extra time so it meant that Gianluca Zambrotta and Fabio Grosso, who had both done well, stopped worrying the French.

I could not really understand Lippi's attitude late in the game and I have to say I thought the Italians, in the end, reverted to defensive type. That was a pity because they had played so well in the first half. After the early French goal through the penalty, the Italians came back in the way that a good team does, getting an equaliser within 13 minutes.

They were giving France no end of bother, especially at set-piece situations, but somehow, in the second half, they backed off and were much less dangerous. They ended up looking much the more tired of the two teams. Indeed they ended up looking like France themselves had looked in the second half of their semi-final against Portugal.

I had thought before the final it might be a game too far for France but, in the end, it looked more like a game too far for Italy.

Thinking back on the overall tournament, it probably says much about the quality of what we saw over the last month that most people's idea of the best player is Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro. He is an outstanding defender but it is a pity that no really outstanding striker has emerged here in Germany.

Not, mind you, that the Italians will complain about that. You to have to feel that it was written somewhere, it was their destiny to win this World Cup having endured heartbreak on other occasions.