Bit players deliver the punch line

If football's celebrities are measured on their ability to deliver on the big occasion, David Trezeguet is an unlikely addition to the order of the distinguished.

Before last evening's confrontation of the charismatic and the great unloved, Trezeguet had seen service for just 105 minutes in France's progress to the finals.

Yet it was his golden goal, created by moments of sorcery by another substitute, Robert Pires, which ensured that the vast majority of the neutrals in Rotterdam's Feyenoord stadium got the result they coveted.

When they come to recounting the players who have enriched the folklore of this championship, the man who got into the game only after Youri Djorkaeff had finally run out of steam in the 75th minute will be high on the list of the heroes.

France, betraying all the signs of a team which was destined for the loneliness of the losers' dressing-room as the game went into extra time, had delivered on their pedigree by joining Germany as the only country to hold the World Cup and European championship trophies simultaneously.

In that perhaps there was no great surprise. Less predictable by far was the fact that they would aspire to the great dream on an evening when Zinedine Zidane, for once, experienced the frustration of mere mortals.

In Paris two years ago, Zidane had reached out for the acclaim of an entire nation with a virtuoso performance against Brazil in the World Cup final. Now the pressures of that success, it seemed, were a massive weight on his shoulders.

Surrounded by dark destroyers fore and aft, he didn't touch the ball for the first 10 minutes, and when he eventually put leather on leather the effect was largely inconsequential in the first half.

To his credit, he upped the level of his contribution after the interval, but this was one game in which his performance was more in keeping with the venerable look of a chunky, balding man.

For a couple of fleeting moments opportunity beckoned when he addressed a freekick in a central position 25 yards out. Sadly for the legions of his supporters, the ball topped the crossbar by at least a couple of yards.

In a sense it said it all about the disappointing quality of the great majority of the set-pieces in this competition.

True, Zidane gave us a goal to remember when curving a free into the back of Spain's net in the quarter-finals, and Frank De Boer put his name on another classic strike for Holland.

The authentic badge of all true champions, however, is their ability to compensate in other areas when potential match-winners are ineffectual. And even as the great man struggled, the French fund a willing rallying point in their admirable skipper, Didier Deschamps.

At times the midfield skirmishing was frenetic. And with ferocious tacklers of the calibre of Demetrio Albertini, Luigi Di Biagio and Gianluca Pessotta on the prowl for Italy, that was scarcely unexpected.

Yet Deschamps, beautifully balanced and invariably capable of extricating himself from the tightest situations, was quite superb in the manner in which he wafted past opponents in the champions' more affluent moments.

There was much to admire also in the display of Thierry Henry, notably in the first hour. A mere bit player two years ago, Henry has grown into a superb athlete who so tormented the Italians that Di Biagio and Fabio Cannavaro were both booked in their attempts to come to terms with the threat in the opening half.

Those were the adorning aspects of France's performance. But when Lemerre reflects on a game which so very nearly went wrong for them, he will find cause for disquiet in the manner in which they struggled for long periods.

Of Italy, it can be said they were scarcely flattered when Marco Delvecchio, like Trezeguet dwarfed in a cast of aristocrats, shot them into the lead in the 54th minute. And subsequently Alessandro Del Piero missed at least two good opportunities to consolidate it.

For a man who rejoices in the title of the lira lord of Italian football, that fitted an all too familiar pattern, and ultimately it would cost them the chance of a prized victory.

The contributions of Francesco Totti, a live contender for the man of the match award, and Alessandro Nesta deserved better.