May Zidane enjoy a last glorious encore

Sideline Cut: There is always something heavily anti-climactic and even sad about the World Cup final. Much like the seaside shop barely stocked with a few remaining ice-pops on the last weekend of the summer, the feeling is of something magical and bountiful on the verge of closing down the shutters.

Anyone who has walked down Dorset Street as darkness falls on the evening of an All-Ireland final is hit with the same feeling, an overwhelming sense of closure, a departure of an entity, a life force, that has held your fascination through the long, bright evenings.

The last month in Germany was not the most intense World Cup experience from an Irish perspective, but it was so colourful and thrilling many Irish sports fans and, presumably, the FAI must have wished intensely we could have been there.

Germany must be thrilled. They have staged a marvellously easy-going and high-spirited World Cup. The national mood was greatly lifted by the perfectly weighted adventures of Deutschland under Klinsmann and they learned to enjoy the manifestations of nationhood without the guilt or inhibitions that have stalked the German imagination for half a century.

A great many fans from around the world must have found themselves disarmed by the warmth and the general mood that awaited them in the 12 cities. And from the free-form opening match between Germany and Costa Rica, a standard of general excellence was quickly established as the general mode for the opening fortnight, with Argentina's 6-0 opera against poor Serbia and Montenegro the most outrageous example. Inevitably, there was a rush to proclaim the South Americans as champions-elect and an acknowledgement that Esteban Cambiasso's second goal contained all the necessary qualities to elevate it to one of the greatest ever. It was genuinely spine-tingling, a real privilege to be in Gelsenkirchen as Argentina soared to the intoxicating heights that enraptured Maradona and the wider world.

But the match left the nagging feeling that as sumptuous and gifted as Argentina were, they might also be too highly strung to last the full slog of the tournament. If this was their game in full flow, it looked so intricate and sophisticated that surely it could be halted by means as crude as prodding a stick through the spokes of a passing bicycle.

And so Argentina were overcome by the bravery and vast ambition of Germany as much as by the strange and inhibited machinations of their coach, Jose Pekerman.

Felled with Argentina were the other South American heavyweights, Brazil, who progressed with lazy stealth to the quarter-finals with a series of performances that lacked the flamboyance, the joy and the expressionism every generation of Brazilian players are almost duty-bound to produce.

Other stories went along expected lines, with Spain again managing to make the worst from the brightest start, and poor England plunging into a hostile ocean of self-doubt and recrimination and the sobering realisation that just because it has been 40 years since God Save the Queen was played at a World Cup final does not mean it cannot be another 40. It was hard not to feel some sympathy for the English during the grim meltdown against Portugal in the penalty shoot-out, and in particular for Steven Gerrard, John Terry and Owen Hargreaves, all of whom gave honourable examples of the best virtues of the English game and hinted that the team had enough heart, if not guile, to have travelled further under different circumstances.

It is always amusing to read, watch and listen to the anguished analysis of the shortcomings of the English game when teams from across the world begin turning on the style. With the possible exception of Wayne Rooney, England have no player who could have replicated Andrea Pirlo's pass that set up Fabio Grosso in the second-last minute of extra time against Germany on Tuesday night. It was so sly and simple and ingenious, his motion and direction convincing a German defence already waiting for the end whistle that he would go for the conventional pass to the wing until he played the lethal, perfect no-look ball at the killer moment for Grosso to reward with a blazing finish. Given the staggering quality of the long contest that had preceded that goal and the hugeness of the occasion, it was arguably the score of the tournament.

And it set up a worthy final. Although the knock-out stages did not quite deliver on the potential of the first two weeks, the steady ascent of Italy from the ignominy of scandal and the magnificent French renaissance were such absorbing tales that they seem to have become the very point of this World Cup. The aristocrats of western Europe entered this tournament racked by internal turmoil, and both teams have responded in such heroic fashion that many neutrals will be torn over who they would like to see win.

The match-fixing allegations that stalked the Juventus players as they prepared for this World Cup will undoubtedly be painfully scrutinised over the coming months. Betting scandals are nothing new in soccer, but the timing and seriousness of the allegations emanating from Italy must have left the international team, for all their fame and wealth, feeling vulnerable and alone.

But a World Cup without a strong Italian team would be a lesser World Cup. And so there has been a backs-against-the-wall defiance to their game, with the predictable defensive shutouts and scintillating counterattacks and absurdly photogenic celebrations. And when old-stager Alessandro Del Piero, now a frustrated fringe man in Marcello Lippi's plans, brilliantly nailed the jubilant second goal against Germany, you could not but feel glad for them at the way it had fallen into place.

If Italy are fighting against the ruinous temptations of corruption, then France are battling the all-powerful laws of time. After coming within 45 minutes of exiting at the group stages, moody, irascible, loveable France have all but made this tournament theirs. The sudden, electric return of the vintage Zinedine Zidane at the age of 34 has been greeted with childish delight because all logic says it cannot happen at this level. Those who follow Zidane for a living reckoned his display against Brazil ranked among his career's top three performances.

Much like his hero Michael Jordan, Zidane has managed to repel the limitations and vicissitudes of age on the grandest stage possible. At the height of his greatness, Zidane laughed off the suggestion that Jordan had even heard of him, let alone followed his career. You have to hope someone in Chicago will advise Jordan to watch the last night of the soccer fair in Berlin. Although the game will mean little to him, he should instantly recognise in Zidane an athlete blessed with his own aura of greatness and the uncanny ability to reproduce a repertoire of skills that should, by right, belong to the past.

And he might, as many hope, see one of the most heartening and popular encores to grace the game of football or any sport.