Bohemia Bunny

The Final Hurrah

July 10th, 2006 by lynn under Comments and Leisure

Well now that the 2006 edition of the quadrennial madness is over, we can all go back to sleeping at 11, waking at 6 and debating useless politicians rather than useless strikers. I don’t know if this edition can be considered a classic - time is usually the best decider of such things - but it sure had its share of surprises. And no, Brazil losing to France wasn’t one of them. No, seriously, I wasn’t shocked at all.

The usually dour Germans should win some sort of fan award, I think, for being able to win over a whole nation of doubters. Most Lovable Team, or something like that.

Most Frustrating Team should be shared between England and Spain. Great talents on paper, but somehow they just can’t gel into a coherent entity. I didn’t see much of Spain, but I had more than my fair share of England - it was punishment of some sort for being so endlessly optimistic, I see that now.

Every World Cup throws up its share of young geniuses heralded as the next big thing, and Messi and Podolski pretty much justified their tags. Theo Walcott, on the other hand, barely justified his plane ticket, in my opinion. I didn’t even get a glimpse of him in the dugout, much less see him kick a ball. Yes, it’s a huge experience for him to go to the World Cup at 17, but I figure he could just as soon have bought his own tickets for the matches. The World Cup is not some England school trip, all right?

Then there are those whose dreams were cruelly cut short by injury. Top of the Sob Stories list has to be Cisse, who didn’t even get a competitive kick in before flying home. Michael Owen follows, and poor old Michael Ballack missed the third-place playoff. Ballack seems to be cursed as far as final matches go.

And because the World Cup only comes around every 4 years, 30-something captains and midfield marvels will be tottering fathers of adolescents by the time the next World Cup rolls around. That’s why you always get the fond, and not-so-fond farewells every time a team exits. Among the notable ones leaving are Luis Figo, Oliver Kahn, what seems to be half the French team, Gary Neville and Sol Campbell. But I think the most heartrending story belongs to that son of Marseille, Zinedine Zidane.

He came out of retirement for a final hurrah, and led them all the way to the final, and somehow it all fell apart 110 minutes into the match. You don’t expect a 34-year-old man to headbutt an opponent, and certainly not in his final match when you’d expect him to want to go out on a high note. I know there’s a saying about ‘if you’re going down, go down fighting’ but I don’t think that’s exactly what it means. I wonder why he headbutted him though. I’d have shoved the fella in the chest, perhaps that only gets me a yellow instead of a red, I dunno. Shoving is an angry move, but not quite violent, so perhaps it’s worth a yellow card for unsportsmanlike behaviour. But hey, this is the same referee who sent off Rooney for that ball-busting stumble, so.

The saddest thing about Zidane getting sent off is that once you’re off the pitch, you can’t come back. Not even for the medal presentation ceremony. So the man who inspired them to a last shot at glory wasn’t even there at the end. It left a bit of a sour taste.

It was lovely to see the Italians celebrating, it’s really amusing how grown men regress to teenage boys in the heat of victory. It seems Camoranesi cut off his ponytail - I wonder why he was keeping it in the first place. If they hadn’t won, would he have kept it like some symbol of his disappointment?

Ah well, it’s over, and while some coaches *cough*Klinsi*cough* are being begged to stay on, others are given a metaphorical kick out the door. A 25-million pound kick out the door. Yeah, good riddance to you too, aye!