Yesterday’s World Cup final saw the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in a sporting event (and I go back a ways — ’55 Dodgers winning the World Series is my first sports memory). I’ve been trying to think of a U.S. equivalent, for those many readers who don’t follow “the beautiful game” regularly, and here’s what I’ve come up with. Pick some sporting giant, beloved and admired by all, even opponents and fans of opposing teams, for the sheer elegance and grace and beauty of his play — someone like Magic Johnson, or Wayne Gretzky, or Derek Jeter. Say it’s Jeter. It’s Game 7 of the World Series. Jeter has announced before the Series began that he would be retiring from baseball forever when the Series is over. So this is the last we’ll see of him on the field. It’s a real nail-biter, tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth. Oh, and baseball has adopted a new rule: no extra innings. Any game tied at the end of regulation is decided by a home run derby. As the teams change sides in the bottom of the ninth, Jeter, for no apparent reason and in full view of everyone, slugs the opposing first baseman in the jaw; he is, of course, thrown out of the game, leaving his club Jeter-less in the homerun derby that follows. His club predictably, loses.
And multiply everything — the intensity of the game, the number of people watching and hanging on every pitch, the passion of the fans — by 100 or so.
That’s basically what happened, with Zinedine Zidane playing the Jeter role. Five minutes or so after coming achingly close to putting France ahead 2-1, in the 104th minute, with a beautiful header that the Italian goalkeeper pawed over the crossbar with an absolutely brilliant save, he walks over to one of the Italian defenders and head-butts him, hard, in the chest. He gets shown the red card; France loses the shootout. Strangest damned thing I’ve ever seen . . . What could possibly have been going through his mind?