July 5: The Daily World Cup Wrap
Zidane Zidane is enough to make me believe in ghosts. He only decided to play in the World Cup after receiving a spooky nocturnal visit, and now he’s in the World Cup final.
“I didn’t want to make a big thing out of this, and for people to interpret what I say badly but what happened to me is really quite mysterious and unexplainable,” Zidane has said. “You could even say it’s irrational.”
You could indeed, but no more irrational than Ricardo Carvalho’s crazy leg waving tackle on Thierry Henry to gift France a first half penalty.
Daily Wrap Awards:
Top Man: Thierry Henry, for whatever wise words he gave Ronaldo at the final whistle.
Top Team: France.
Top Goal: The only one.
Bit of Skill: Cristiano Ronaldo’s dribble at the heart of France’s defence.
Saw That Coming: Cristiano Ronaldo being booed.
But Not That: Big Phil Scolari losing a footbal match.
France vs Portugal | LiveBlog | France World Cup Gear, Portual World Cup Gear
France 1 (Zidane [pen] 33)
Portugal 0
Nothing like the excitement of yesterday’s semi-final to be found here, but French fans won’t care how they won this one. Portugal had the early attempts at goal, with Barthez stretching himslef across the turf to keep out Deco’s low drive, and Christiano Ronaldo roll giving Maniche another chance to try out his trusty shooting boots (which he may or may not have stolen from Frank Lampard). This effort sailed over though.
The deciding moment came in the 32nd minute when Thierry Henry cut inside Ricardo Carvalho, forcing the defender into a desperate version of the can-can as he attempted to fall backwards and tackle the Arsenal forward at the same time. Henry didn’t need a second invitation to go down (legitimately) in the box.
It seemed that no French player could be found who was brave enough to face Ricardo for the penalty, understandable given the Portuguese keeper’s record-breaking heroics against England. Eventually Zidane stepped up and struck the ball to Ricardo’s right. The keeper guessed the right way but Zidane’s accuracy gave him no chance and the ball nestled comfortable in the corner.
Much of Portugal’s efforts to restore parity went through Cristinao Ronaldo. Despite being booed every time he received the ball, the youngster was full of stepovers and backheels and always looked dangerous. Unfortunately, Portugal lacked a strong presence at centre forward, with lone striker Pauleta getting lost among France’s impressive central defenders. Just once, Lilian Thuram was kind enough let Pauleta get a decent shot away, but his effort hit the side netting.
Portugal’s best chance came when Cristiano Ronaldo’s 78th minute free kick panicked Fabien Barthez, who decided striking the ball high into the air like a volleyball was preferable to catching it. Luis Figo was positioned to profit from Barthez’ inevitable moment of madness but the former galactico headed over.
Figo’s final World Cup appearance will be in the relatively low key semi-exhibition game that is the 3rd place play-off, while Zidane’s final World Cup appearance, and final appearance as a professional footballer will be in the World Cup final against Italy.
Video highlights here.
Fan Photo: French and Portuguese fans…
- Follow the links for more World Cup Blog photos and video, or submit your own to enter our photo and video contest. Thanks to Umbro and Subside Sports for providing the prizes.
- Want to discuss todays action? Go to the France or Portugal team pages.
- Buy World Cup final tickets.
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Comments
By futbol | July 6th, 2006 at 1:11 am 
As GER could not put a goal in ITA net, it’s hard for me to imagine FRA could.
ITA will win the cup!
Posted from 
United States
By fubar | July 6th, 2006 at 1:48 am … Barthez’ inevitable moment of madness …
nice one. kept me laughing for some time.
By Sylvia | July 6th, 2006 at 2:04 am It’ll be Italy.
Posted from 
Canada
By Raybron | July 6th, 2006 at 2:07 am I will pick France being French and cheering on the greatest player of our generation in his last hurrah. They truly do feel like a team of destiny. Of course who knows. Anyone who pretends to be certain of the outcome of a football match is either completely deluded or hasn’t watched much football.
Posted from United States
By Stefan | July 6th, 2006 at 2:22 am I would have to favor the Italians but for a reason not mentioned. The French will be out of the service of Saha for the final who has been a key sub for them. He has played in every game as a sub and was a great option for when they needed an extra attacking forward. From watching both semifinals I believe he is the only player suspended for the final and he can be an impact player.
In other news today I really think Cristiano Ronaldo better request a transfer because I do not see him and Wayne Rooney being good teammates ever again. Where would be a good home for Cristiano Ronaldo?
Posted from 
Germany
By Raybron | July 6th, 2006 at 2:27 am It definitely did hurt me to see Saha get carded but he really seemed to play VERY badly this game. It was strange, but almost every Portugese chance at the end was from one of his turnovers. He almost gifted away two goals. If the game goes to extra time every body is helpful though. But don’t forget they also have Trezeguet to bring on.
Posted from United States
By __earth | July 6th, 2006 at 3:38 am ah, fun watching that one guy being booed.
Posted from 
Malaysia
By tirusew | July 6th, 2006 at 3:41 am everything is guess. France will lift the Cup and Zinedeen will be the player of the day, the year til 2010.
Posted from United States
By Welsh | July 6th, 2006 at 8:07 am Though Trezeguet is a good player, but he does not have the qualities of Saha which is his fighting spirit. Saha fights for every ball and seems to flick more balls to the running player on his head, and lets not forget he holds the ball very well and a decent finisher. Trezeguet is only a box player apart from his great finishes he does not give the team that extra dimension that is needed in those last few minutes of the match. That’s why Domenech did not use him.
I predicted a final btween France and Italy right after the first knockout stages games. It was very obvious that these two great teams had the min set and the professionalism to go all the way. Germany played good football, but if you know the game you can see that they will fail against italy the master tacticians. I gotta hand it to Lippi once more he proved he is a master tactician. France slowed the match temp on purpose right from the start and that’s what they wanted against the enthusiasm of the Portugese and they have succeded to kill any fighting spirit in them by not contesting to hard and playing the easy football with experience.
Sunday’s game is hard to call, both teams have great defences. Everyone talks about how great the italian defence is, but forgetting how great the Franch defence was marshalled by the great Lillian Thuram. I expect an epic battle of suday lead by Thuram fro the French and Cannavaro for Italy. These two guys are the best so far in the tournament and the outcome of the game will depend on their performances. Of oucrse thet are other factors, but these two generals are the ones to watch.
For all that say Italy and France played pporly, I’d say they know nothing about the game, championships are won by defenders and lets not forget it is an ART.
Posted from United States
By Lucifer | July 6th, 2006 at 9:51 am Viva Italia…
Posted from 
Singapore
By Pedro P | July 6th, 2006 at 11:21 am Huy guys!
1) Congratulations to FRA. They deserved the win, although I think POR played better. POR couldn’t score but created enough chances, even 1-0 down. If you can’t score against your enemie, after breaking their defense, you don’t deserve the victory.
2) To all the guys who are trying to make a scape-goat out of POR by calling us cheaters, divers, etc, THEY ALL DO IT, as Henry once again demonstrated very well. Only the english do it less, cos even scandinavian and since last match, especially the dutch do it. FRA got back to the game against SPA with one; although there was a touch yesterday, there was no penalty against POR (that was the refs decision, it was a very close call but we accept it, no problem) and there was also not a penalty against FRA, as POR clamed.
3) To all the “super purists”, that decide to look at football only every 4 yers and not every week and don’t really understand much about it, the ones who think they have enough moral to judge teams based upon false convictions, I remind all the other teams, and other chapinships, who only reached far with a lot of help from the ref, and other things of the sort… POR got to the semi’s with a lot of swet, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of belief. Having everybody calling them divers and cheaters. It was a good show, again congratulations to the french and to POR!!!
Posted from 
Netherlands
By janus | July 6th, 2006 at 11:54 am Very well said Pedro P.
I also extend my congratulations to France for winning although I also believe that Portugal were the better team.
The French seemed to never threaten Ricardo at all (only once by Henry), having been content to get a penalty and then sit back and defend a la Greece in Euro 2004. And what about all the time wasting, sheesh, Barthez don’t be so obvious about it.
It looked to me like France was afraid of Portugal’s attack and were lucky not to go into overtime. Miguel’s injury was also a big blow to Portugal as he was playing well and was making a dangerous run at that precise moment.
To finish off, how ironic that the Portuguese get the reputation for diving yet it is Henry the master diver of this world cup. I’m not disputing whether it is or is not a penalty since it’s a 50:50 call. But I believe that Henry felt Carvalho’s foot and threw himself into the box arms outstretched like a ballarina.
Think about it, had this been Ronaldo in the french box would the ref had blown a penalty? I seriously doubt it.
Oh well, the tradition continues. France eliminates Portugal once again on a dubious penalty (OK the Xavier one 2000 was a penalty) scored by Zidane. I just hope that next time they meet the match is decided by the players and not by south american referees.
Congrats to France once again.
Portugal you can hold your head up high for you had a brilliant Cup.
Good luck Italy. I hope the final isn’t decided by some ref.
It’s been nice chatting with many of you.
See you in 2010.
Posted from 
Belgium
By Pragyan | July 6th, 2006 at 1:09 pm Its great that Germany has crashed out of the World Cup. A nation which prostitutes its women has nothing called National Pride. They are a bunch of pimps and prostitutes. Look at the way they sold female flesh in this World Cup. Disgusting !
Posted from 
India
By Pragyan | July 6th, 2006 at 1:10 pm The Cup goes to France. All the best to the Zidane Team !
Posted from India
By jaclyn | July 6th, 2006 at 3:00 pm i like zidane as much as the next person, ( my cousin is named after him — alessandro zinadine zidane ) but i think that italy has the better team. even if france gets some shots on goal, its much less likely buffon will let them go in. barthez on the other hand … well hes just a horrible mistake waiting to happen.
Posted from United States
By Angie M | July 6th, 2006 at 4:08 pm I think French will do it. They play fair.
Posted from United States
By dada | July 6th, 2006 at 4:56 pm If I were Portugese, I wouldn’t exactly appreciate losing a semi-final 1-0 on a penalty! Being French I can only say that the penalty seems a fair decision and that Thierry Henry didn’t jump!
France didn’t outplay Portugal but who cares after all. How many goals did Portugal manage to score?
It would have probably been a different story for us with Germany… for Germany are the team we have to avoid meeting for a cup match. Bad memories are lingering…
Maybe it’s just that France are the Portugese team’s b�te noire (pet hate) after so many defeats, as it’s also been the case with Brazil (yeah!) and Italy…
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for Sunday night, hoping that the French will play well and that the Italians will still think that they’re bound to lose in the end, as usual… as if it were a fatum predicted by the oracle. Fatalitas!
Besides a second crown seems to me to be the right prize for Zidane’s outstanding career! It woud undoubtedly make him the player of his generation and one of the greatest ever.
Posted from 
France
By Thierry Henry | July 12th, 2006 at 4:16 am I likes little girls and boys and i dive a lot LOLOLOL!!11!! !! 1!! ! !!
Posted from 
Australia
By Thierry Henry | July 12th, 2006 at 4:16 am I likes little girls and boys and i dive a lot LOLOLOL!!11!! !! 1!! ! !!
Posted from Australia
By poo | March 21st, 2007 at 8:40 am i think Portugal and france are both crap, support england!!!!!
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