No, it was not, alas, atypical. For Zizou, as the police say, has form. Moments of sudden violence litter his otherwise superb career. He was sent off against Saudi Arabia in the 1998 World Cup. He has been sent off for violent fouls when playing for various clubs. But for a player of such supreme skill, unruffled poise and virtuosity, to get himself expelled in a World Cup final borders on the irrational, if not the inexplicable.

No World Cup final should ever be decided by penalties. You might just as logically toss a coin or a disc, which happened as recently as the 1960 Olympic tournament in Italy. Ideally, the teams should replay, but the sheer, absurd gigantism of the tournament, with its colossal entry of 32 teams where once there were sixteen, makes this no more than a chimera.

Indeed in 1994, the Italians and Brazilians had come to Pasadena so exhausted that they made it clear before the final that they had no ambition to replay, even were it possible.

Attacking Azzurri

To what extent were Italy's ultimately cautious tactics down to their manager, Marcello Lippi? There was simply no analogy with the way the Azzurri had disposed of Germany in the semifinal when Lippi threw on a platoon of attackers and was rewarded with two late excellent goals.

After France had gone ahead so early in the first half, the Italians seemed to terrorise France's defence with their high crosses whether from set pieces or open play. Materazzi, who had already soared to head a fine goal against the Czechs, now leaped above Patrick Vieira — a great loss to France when he was injured — to equalise in Berlin.

You would surely have thought the Azzurri would keep up the bombardment, would use Andrea Pirlo's cunning corners and the potentially attacking full-backs Fabio Grosso and Gianluca Zambrotta, as they so successfully had against the Germans. It did not happen and indeed it was the French who called the tune for much of the second half.

Overall, however, it was a far better World Cup and a far better balanced final than in 2002, when the mere fact that such an ordinary German team found its way to the final told you so much about the tournament.

The Klinsi effect

Jurgen Klinsmann, so strongly criticised for so long, eventually made his unorthodox training methods pay, welding the Germans into a thoroughly efficient team.

But one still wonders what came over the previously shrewd Argentine coach Jose Pekerman, in the game against the Germans, when he took off his own protégé and playmaker Riquelme, and bizarrely failed to take the effervescent young Lionel Messi off the bench.

In contrast, Raymond Domenech, much criticised by the French press and something off an endearingly comic figure on the touchline with his grimaces and gestures, was sufficiently generous and inspired as to restore Zidane to the team, after he'd substituted him against South Korea.

Relations between the two men had seemed icy, but Domenech's gamble succeeded at least till Zizou disgraced himself. And, of all people, against the often ruthless Materazzi. The man, who dedicated his other fine goal against the Czechs to Daniele de Rossi, who was suspended for his brutal elbow in the face of America's Brian McBride.

Michael Owen, who in the past seemed a supporter of the ineffable Sven Goran Eriksson, has now pertinently attacked him, both for his exploitation of Wayne Rooney as a single striker, a role quite foreign to him and for his decision to pick but never play young Theo Walcott.

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