Italy Wins the Cup

Italy wins! Italy won the World Cup championship yesterday after the game was forced to go into penalty kicks to decide the winner. It was a nerving game, with the French dominating the field for much of regulation play and Italy getting easily fatigued - France scored the first goal of the 1-1 tie, in fact - but Italy held on long enough to step away from the breach. :-)

One factor that contributed to France's loss was the expulsion of its captain, Zinedine Zidane, who was red-carded for ramming Italian player Marco Materazzi in the chest with his head. Zidane, an internationally respected player who announced his retirement earlier this year, is regarded as France's best kicker, and so without him in the penalty kick phase, the French lost their best chance of winning.

Zidane was accused of losing his head. Actually, he used his head - literally, and childishly! But get this. He was just given the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player!

That would be like George W. Bush giving a medal to someone who screwed up on Iraq . . .. Okay, bad example! :-O