The End [Allegedly] - UPDATE IV (Now with video)

So, Zinedine Zidane, the "Artist" or "Blue Angel" as he has become known by French sportwriters, ended his career with a red card at 110 minutes of the World Cup final last night. Lots of talking heads are throwing around lots of words about this, with reason. It's rare that such a renowned player acknowledges the end to his career in such manner (that he would retire from from all professional soccer at the end of the cup), and it's rare that someone who shows such form ends his career and it's even rarer that someone commits a foul as flagrant and as blatant as the one of Zidane last night. But many of the [english-language] sportswriters are dead wrong.

(disclosure) Before, I get into the meat of this post, I just want to clearly state - I do not condone his actions. He was wrong. He deserved a red card for his actions. (/disclosure)

First things first: Both Domenech and Lippi addressed this issue and the ref is wrong for this reason. THERE IS NO REPLAY IN SOCCER. I will quote Lippi here, because I think his opinion is more relevant than Domenech's:

You will realise that it was not Materazzi who got the attention of the referee. It was the fourth and fifth officials looking at the video at the edge of the pitch. We did not do anything. They saw it and they called the attention of the referee.

I repeat - there is no video replay in soccer. None of the referees saw what happened. Buffon ran to the assistant on the sidelines after it happen, the head ref Elizondo, came walking over afterwards - he showed no inclination to card Zidane (although Zidane thought he was going to be redded, going as far as removing his captain's arm band, before replacing it minutes later when he thought he may get away with it). Only after an extended amount of time did the head ref go over and speak with the fourth linesman, who told him what happened, undoubtedly after seeing the replay on the sidelines. Whether Zidane deserved to be redded or not is not the issue at hand. If the refs say they can't review plays because FIFA does not allow video review, but then sends a player off after one of the refs sees the video replay - this doesn't fly in my book. One standard for all, FIFA.

Now, getting to the buffoons (not to be confused with Buffon) who have written and will write so much drivel about Zidane's "fall." The French love this guy. After the '98 world cup, they were chanting "Zidane, President" on the Champs Elysée. He is a great football player who truly personifies French football. A son of immigrant parents who rose from the tough neighborhoods of Marseille to become a world-class soccer player who is an idol for 1000s of little French footballers, dreaming of playing in the World Cup one day. I do not think that this will have a huge effect on the views here of the man. Zidane, while generally stoic, has a temper. He stamped on a Saudi player during the Cup in '98. He was suspended for 5 games in the Champions League when he played at Juventus for two different acts (one of which was a headbutt). I have seen him be really nasty - spiking players who pissed him off. While it comes as a surprise that he allowed emotions to get the best of him at that point in a match with such a magnitude of importance, I am not totally surprised to see him do such an action. The French will never hate him. It started as soon as it happened, both on French TV ("he was obviously provoked") and with the people who were watching with me. BBC commenter Alan Hansen erroneously said that Zidane will be the "loneliest man in the world after that." ESPN's Soccernet leads with the totally misquoted headline "Domenech: Zidane red cost us the match." Domenech said that it was a turning point and that France realized that the Italians were playing for penalties and that they should have tried to take advantage of this, but with Zidane being sent off they couldn't really do it. He didn't really blame Zinedine, other than say it was too bad that he lost his cool.
Reading some posts from Britain, I think that many normal people (i.e. bloggers) are more or less speaking along the same lines as me - it's not excusable, but it doesn't change what he has done for the last 15 years. I can't read Italian, which is a shame, I'd like to know what they are saying. Lippi, while stating that it was a definite red, basically said the same thing: Zidane is[was] a great player who will be known for his on-field ability. It's basically just the ignorant American press who seems to think that this is going to have a profound change on how people view Zidane.

Just a few notes on the non-red card aspects of the match:
It was ok. Both teams played well. I think from the second half on the French played better, but the Italian defense was a wall - literally (how d'ya like that, Jeff?) - any time the French crossed the midfield line, there were 5-7 Italians there to stop them. If they won, it's because of this. Buffon is probably the best keeper in the world. Just a little statistic: The Italians did not allow ONE "regular" goal in the entire World Cup competition. They conceded an own-goal against the Americans and Zidane's penalty yesterday, but they did not allow any normal-play goals. That, my friends, is insane defense.

Coupet and Barthez: I think that Coupet would've stopped at least one penalty shot.

[UPDATE]: Breaking news. Despite his red card, Zidane won the Golden Ball for best player in the World Cup tournament. I was sure that he was on path to win it, but thought that his headbutt/red card would count against him and I thought that Gigi Buffon would take it home. Not to be. Stick that in your pipes, ESPN et. al. in the American sports press.

[UPDATE II]: French TV is reporting that rumors coming out of the French locker room have Materazzi making racist comments to Zidane before the now infamous action.

[UPDATE III]: FIFA is terrible organization that must resort to lying to try to clean up its own mess. Or put into other words, FIFA denies that video evidence was used to (rightfully) red card Zidane on Sunday night. They claim that although 3 or 4 minutes passed between the incident and the fourth referee telling the head ref (in person) what happened, the fourth ref did not see any video replay and in fact had see the action in real-time and immediately told the head ref over the head set. The head ref then decided to wait for this time period before physically running over to confirm with the fourth ref (who once again, didn't see any video evidence) that the incident did take place. FIFA is ruining football. This World Cup was one of the lowest scoring and the dirtiest (plus there were tons of bad calls - red card for Mastroeni anyone?), yet they're sure they are doing a stand-up job.

[UPDATE IV]: VIDEOS: I just want to put up a couple of video angles of this. If anyone lip reads Italian, this video may reveal to what Materazzi said. Here's the video from TF1 (France).