Wimbledon and World Cup

This Sunday two finals competed for attention. That of tennis' defining event - Wimbledon, and that of football's (or soccer for the yankees) premier event - The World Cup. Although it must be said that the football final won hands down, not only because football is much more popular around the world (tennis is still considered to be a rich man's sport) but also because it only happens once every four years.

As far as I am concerned, I was probably more keen on the result of the Wimbledon final, where the cool, composed Federer faced off with the precocious, upstart, Nadal. Nadal had had the upper hand so far this year with four straight wins over Federer (the only guy to beat him really) and he had by far the biggest win in the final of the French open, thus denying Federer a chance to hold all four grand slam titles at the same time (hasn't happened since Laver in '69) and confirming his status as the king of clay (what with 60 straight wins). If Nadal won this final (he surprised everyone and probably even himself by getting that far at wimbledon - think Lendl who said that grass was for cows and never competed there), then he would have severely dented Federer's claim as the world's best player. But thankfully, Federer prevailed for his 48th straight win on grass and won the title on tennis' biggest stage.

The other final, one between Italy and France flattered to deceive. It started very well, with some very attacking football from both sides, and two very quick goals (the one by Italy was certainly much nicer). Italy almost took a 2-1 lead, but the ball sadly deflected out from the crossbar. The second half was all france, with attacks after attacks, but no serious chance for a goal. Then we were in extra time, and there happened one of the strangest incidents I have seen, when the French captain Zidane headbutted an Italian defender due to what had been said. This was really ludicrous and incredible! But news reports have been emerging that Zidane had to endure strong racial slurs throughout the game, especially from the defender Materazzi, as Zidane originally hails from Algeria. Anyhow, there was no further damage after Zidane was sent off, thus ending his mostly glorious career in an apparently disgraceful manner. He has since been defended by the coach, some of his teammates, and some anti-racial organizations. We then got to penalties, thus giving the viewers full value for money. France was without 4 of their key players, but still fought tooth and nail, only to narrowly lose in the end. Thus, Italy were the champions of FIFA world cup 2006! I managed to catch this one live at a friend's place, and some parts of it were certainly good to watch. But the world cup, mostly trouble free until the final, got a question mark - we will probably never hear the complete details of what transpired but something serious must have happened for the french captain to lose his cool like that. Anyhow, had he managed to hold on, we might have seen the french pulling it through. But we will never know...