France plays Italy for the World Cup Final today. Billions are watching around the globe. Then its four more years until the next World Cup match.
USA Today's Soccer Sweep has the starting lineups.
France: (G) Fabien Barthez, (D) Eric Abidal, William Gallas, Lilian Thuram, Willy Sagnol, (M) Patrick Vieira, Claude Makelele, Florent Malouda, Frank Ribery, Zinedine Zidane (captain), (S) Thierry Henry.
Italy: (G) Gianluigi Buffon, (D) Fabio Grosso, Fabio Cannavaro (captain), Gianluca Zambrotta, Marco Materazzi, (M), Mauro Camoranesi, Gennaro Gattuso, Simone Perrotta, Andrea Pirlo, Francesco Totti, (S) Luca Toni.
Some live-blogging of the final can be found here, here, here and here.
Here is some more World Cup coverage from bloggers:
Mike Cardillo is live-blogging the game for Deadspin: "The game is at
2 p.m. ET on ABC, and our man Mike Cardillo of That's On Point
will be live-blogging the game right here at this bat station.
If you like soccer, it'll be as exciting as one could possibly
hope for, and if you don't, well, you don't have to hear about
soccer for a while. It's win-win!"
That's on Point analyzes the Italy and France teams and predicts Italy will win 2-0.
Michel Platini says the final is the only match that matters. He also says he used to love beating Italy.
Did you try to score a goal on Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon yet? With this game you have a much better chance of scoring a goal on Buffon than France does.
Beckham retires as England's captain. At the top of Dayorama it now reads, "The Website Where England Beat Portugal." Meanwhile, in the alternate sports universe that is Dayorama, Ollie plays American Football in the name of journalism.
Lots of glory for Italy predictions: Who Ate All the Bratwurst predicts Italy will defeat France 2-1. The World Cup Soccer Fan Blog has Italy 1-0. World Cup Access also says Italy. Deadspin has Italy winning 2-0. My Soccer Blog says Italy 2-1.
It all depends on your point of view. The Guardian's World Cup Blog explains in a post called "It was the best of cups, it was the worst of cups."
The Sports Blog makes a fairly obvious prediction: Expect a low scoring final they say.
The World Cup Soccerbrawl says no one expected France to be here, even France: "Absolutley no one - particularly the French - believed they would make the final, and they now enter the final game as both the betting and sentimental favorites." They also predict an Italy win.
Rox Populi wonders if we will have to endure commericals on ABC today.
Football365 lists some of their favorite World Cup moments.
Footballspectator explains why they think Brazil failed to win.
The World Cup Final will determine whether or not The Soccer Weblog author believes in ghosts: "There's a lot at stake on Sunday. There's the World Cup final of course, which is fairly important, but we'll also know once and for all whether ghosts exist or not."
Our earlier World Cup coverage, including a list of World Cup blogs, can be found here.
Update: The final goes to Italy who won the game in penalties. The second overtime included a bizarre headbutt attack by France star Zidane that had him sent out of the game. It was a vicious headbutt and a very silly move considering what was at stake. It was Zidane's final game and the final World Cup Game.
110th minute: Elizondo goes over to talk to the line judge. He's reaching for his pocket. And it's RED! Oh my! Zidane is sent off! In what is likely his final match as a professional player, the French legend is sent off disgracefully in overtime of the World Cup final! That was one of the most bizarre plays you're every going to see, and it's made 100 times worse by the timing of it. I'd love to know what Materazzi said to bring that on.
109th minute: WOW! Zidane literally head-butts Materazzi in the chest! But the ref didn't see it! The big Italian defender goes down.
Here is how the New York Times blogger explained it:
110 red ZIDANE IS OFF! RED CARD! BUFFON WENT OVER AND ASKED THE REF TO CHECK WITH HIS LINESMAN! And the linesman said send him off!
109 An Italian is down. The heat and the exhaustion is taking its toll.
Oh my God! Zidane head butted an Italian in the chest! Brutally! And that's the Italian who's down! What was that about? It was Materzzi that Zidane speared! Unbelievable!
109:40 The side official caught Zidane's head butt and he is shown the red card. That is it for his career and it is a horrible way for him to go. The red is justified. He really hit Materazzi.
108:23 Del Piero goes down but is called for holding the ball. Meanwhile, Zidane takes Materazzi with a head butt. Wow, that was not a classy move at all. Materazzi is down in pain. Zidane might get away with this one.
Kodiak points out that Zidane has been red-carded for heatbutts before.
DeadSpin calls it the "Head Head Round the World" and writes, "If only we could all walk out of our careers by headbutting somebody in the chest. Soccer rules." It will be talked about for years to come but the headbutt probably didn't make France soccer fans happy.
Update 2
Zidane's headbutt has made him the top search on Technorati. A clip of the video can be found here, here and here.
Update 3, 7-10-06
Reuters reports that Marco Materazzi apparently called Zinedine Zidane a "dirty terrorist" before the now famous headbutt was delivered.
France captain Zinedine Zidane was apparently called a "dirty terrorist" by Marco Materazzi before he head-butted the Italy defender in Sunday's World Cup final, the anti-racism group SOS Racism said on Monday.
"According to several very well informed sources from the world of football, it would seem that the Italian player Marco Materazzi called Zinedine Zidane a 'dirty terrorist'," SOS Racism said in a statement.
Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was shown a red card after the incident and Italy went on to win on penalties after the match was tied 1-1 following extra time.
Update 7-12-06
Reuters reports that Zidane said in an interview that Materazzi insulted his mother and sister during the game. He apologized to fans and children for the headbutt but not to Materazzi.
"He (Materazzi) pronounced very tough words about my mother and my sister. I tried not to listen to him but he kept repeating them," Zidane said in a live interview on French television channel Canal Plus.
Zidane offered an apology to all children and to all fans for his behavior but he said he did not regret it.
"This was not something to do. I want to make it clear because it was watched by two billion people and by millions of kids," Zidane said.
"I want to apologize to them but I can't regret what I did because it would mean that he (Materazzi) was right to say what he said."
A BBC article says Materazzi denys insulting Zidane's mother.
A Technorati Zidane search now shows over 36,000 English language results and 109,000 all-languages results. BlogPulse says Zidane made it up to No#2 on the most-blogged about people list.
France plays Italy for the World Cup Final today. Billions are watching around the globe. Then its four more years until the next World Cup match.
USA Today's Soccer Sweep has the 
