SHINING LIGHTS: Gianluigi Buffon and Zinedine Zidane, who came up with some excellent exploits to take their teams to the summit clash, were recognised with the Lev Yashin and Golden Ball awards respectively. — Photo: AP

BERLIN: France captain Zinedine Zidane, sent off for head-butting Marco Materazzi late in Sunday's World Cup final loss to Italy, won the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.

The results were released on Monday morning in Berlin by the FIFA.

Zidane polled 2012 points in the vote by journalists covering the tournament, beating Italians Fabio Cannavaro (1977 points) and Andrea Pirlo (715 points) in the ballot.

Zidane, 34, a former international player of the year and 1998 World Cup champion, announced last month that he was retiring from the game after the tournament.

Voting for the 2006 Golden Ball closed at midnight on Sunday. In previous tournaments, the ballot has closed at halftime in the final and the winner announced soon after the match.

Unlucky

Italian captain Cannavaro could be considered unlucky in the voting. He led an Italian defence that conceded only two goals in the tournament: an own goal against the United States and Zidane's penalty in the final. The final was his 100th cap for Italy.

With fellow central defender Alessandro Nesta injured, Cannavaro played every minute of Italy's seven games.

Many pundits tipped Cannavaro as the winner, including 1986 winner Diego Maradona.

"Fabio Cannavaro was the best player of this World Cup," the Argentine great said. "Yes, it was a tournament without one dominant player, but Fabio was huge."

Germany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn won the Golden Ball in 2002. Other previous winners were Brazilians Ronaldo (1998) and Romario ('94), Italy's Salvatore Schillaci ('90) and Argentine great Diego Maradona.

Unbeatable

Meanwhile, the newly-crowned World champion Italy has one more reason to celebrate as goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon bagged the coveted Lev Yashin Award for his match-winning saves, which included a classy one in the final.

The Juventus star has now joined the league of legends such as Belgium's Michel Preud'Homme, French Fabien Barthez and Germany's Oliver Kahn, winners in 1994, 1998 and 2002 respectively, a statement issued by FIFA said.

The keeper had conceded just one goal coming into the final, that too an own goal by right-back Cristian Zaccardo.

Buffon, who made his Serie A debut at the age of 17, had been in prime form at the World Cup and proved almost impossible to beat throughout the tournament.

Having come into the tournament after recovering from a career threatening shoulder injury, Buffon showed remarkable reflexes from the very start. He won the duel with Juventus teammate Pavel Nedved in the group match against Czech Republic to keep a clean sheet for his team.

In the final itself, Buffon overcame an early Zidane penalty to put in an exemplary display and tipped over a goal-bound Zidane header as he proved himself a worthy contender for the Yashin Award.

There may have been a record 28 red cards in the World Cup, but two teams managed to keep their slate largely clean and walked off with the FIFA Fair Play Award 2006.

Brazil and Spain were chosen for the award by the FIFA Technical Study Group after picking up a total of 886 points out of 1,000.

Criteria for selection

The FIFA Fair Play Award is given to the team with the best record of fair play, sportsmanship and good conduct both on and off the pitch, according to a points system and criteria established by the FIFA committee for ethics and fair play.

Every single game at the tournament is evaluated according to these criteria, but only teams that reach the round of 16 are considered eligible for the prize.

The squads will share the prestigious Trophy and also receive medals for each member of its playing and coaching staff, a certificate, and a voucher for $50,000 worth of sporting material to be used in youth development.

The evaluation is carried out according to six criteria that place an emphasis on the positive rather than the negative aspects of a team's performance. The number of cards a team receives is the only way that points can be deducted.

The other criteria taken into consideration are: positive play; respect for opponents; respect for the officials; behaviour of the coaching staff and behaviour of supporters. For Brazil it was the third time that it has won this award.

While the Brazilians may have shown only rare glimpses of their renowned jogo bonito here on German soil, they cannot be accused of not playing fair.

Leading by example was Canarinho defender Lucio, who went more than four games without conceding a single freekick. The Bayern Munich centre-back committed his first foul in his side's quarterfinal defeat against France.

But for Luis Aragones' flamboyant Spanish side it was its first award. Widely known in footballing circles as La Furia Roja (The Red Fury), Xavi and Co. channelled their aggression into playing an open, expansive style of football, teamed with the very highest standards of sportsmanship.

La Seleccion received just six cards in their four games here at Germany 2006. Strangely enough, three of these cards were shown to members of Aragones' second-string side deployed in the Spaniards' final group game against Saudi Arabia. — Agencies

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