Italy Takes FranceThe 2006 World Cup has wrapped. The first sport I've followed, finishes for 2006 with penalty kicks to decide a 1:1 match, leaving the score at 5:3.
We switched back to US (ABC coverage) towards the end of the match in the vain hopes of getting a few clarifications (expecting that by now they'd have an expert to explain matters to a U.S. audience), and my impression continues to be that the U.S. sportscasters still don't know much more about the sport than I do and are bluffing their way through it.
I do wonder why in all of the dumping on France's Zinedine Zidane for severely losing his cool and being red-carded for a head-butt to an Italian player's chest -- certainly a major lack of self-control, yes -- no one's mentioning how the Italian player had his arm reaching around under Zidane's arm and a grip on Zidane's jersey at the breast during the end of the play just a few seconds before. Since Zidane was known as France's primo penalty goal-kicker and it was plainly headed for penalty kicks to decide the game, it struck me as an plain (and highly successful) attempt to goad him into getting himself ejected.
In the end the result's all that's important, but it bothered me that the reporting on it seemed so lopsided. I guess I need to check what the rest of the internation press - and the French sports press in particular - has to say.
Well, that's it for the World Cup until 2010. I wonder whether I'll find myself following the regular soccer season next year, though?
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