Zizou Zidane tarnishes great final tournament with stupid selfish move

20-odd minutes into the overtime sequence, with penalty kicks approaching, and the "classy" Zinedine Zidane has just done something unthinkably stupid. A headbutt to the chest of an Italian player after some basic trash talk. A red card, for this fine, world-class player, about to retire, and he does that?

Was he frustrated by the great save that Buffon made on his header a few minutes prior? It was a great save...

Viva Italia, now or in penalty kicks.

Let us see what happens.

World Cup Soccer final

Kickoff is coming up...

I think that, of the two pretty worthy and classy teams who have made it to the end, Italy and France, I will predict Italy, who I ranked third in my preferences in my last blog posting.

For France, Zinedine Zidane has been a complete and classy captain and champion once again, while thierry Henry is still a cool and classy striker, and I still like Arsenal.

For Italy, however, I think of Allessandro del Piero, who was crushed in 2000 at the Euro 2000 final, defeated by the same France. Del Piero had missed two crucial strike opportunities and was hard on himself in defeat. Other reasons? Italian drama. The scandal that affected Italian Serie A and Juventus. I even read somewhere that the economic stimulus caused by the good mood of a winning country would be most beneficial to the rest of the world if the winner is Italy.

So, that's it for now. Go Italy.

PANEL PICKS (not easy):

Italians
Italians
Italians

France (Vic Rauter)

Also, it appears that France is wearing their white (their team name is 'les Bleus') while Italy is wearing their blue (their team name is Azzurri)

Bodes well for Italy.

Out walk the players, up goes this post!