2006 Zidane Headbutt

Lore & Background

The match was focused mostly on France's Zinedine Zidane and Italy's Marco Materazzi: this was the last match of Zidane's career, they each scored their team's only goal of the game, and they were also involved in an incident in extra time that led to Zidane being sent off for headbutting Materazzi in the chest. The Zidane–Materazzi incident was the subject of much analysis following the match. Italy's Andrea Pirlo was named the man of the match, and Zidane was awarded the FIFA World Cup Golden Ball as the best player of the tournament.

In Their Own Story

The German summer air hung thick over the Olympiastadion, the floodlights turning the grass to green glass. Zidane stood in the centre circle, hands on hips, watching the Italian full-backs reset their shape for another corner. He was 34. His knees ached in a way they never had at twenty. He could feel the match bleeding out of him, minute by minute, like sand through a fist.

The corner came. He rose — that same slow, inevitable rise he'd had since Lyon, since Paris, since the '98 final — and the ball kissed the top of his head and dropped into the net. The stadium exhaled. He pointed to the sky, the way he always did, and for a moment the noise was a living thing, warm and golden.

Then the equaliser. Then the silence of ninety minutes. Then extra time, and the words — whatever they were, in whatever language, in whatever register of provocation — that made something behind his ribs go white-hot. He didn't see Materazzi's face. He saw the chest, the white shirt, the proximity. And his head moved before his mind could stop it.

The red card. The walk. The tunnel. The sound of 74,000 people reduced to a low, confused hum. He did not look back. He did not need to. The career was over. The head was still ringing.

Reader's Guide

The final was witnessed by 69,000 spectators in the stadium, with the referee for the match being Horacio Elizondo from Argentina. Italy's victory was their first world title in 24 years, and their fourth overall, putting them one ahead of Germany and only one behind Brazil. For the first time since November 1993, Italy topped the FIFA World Rankings in February 2007 as a result of the win. With eight football players from Juventus in the final, it equalled the record of Sparta Prague in 1934. Both sides would fail to get past the group stage in 2010, becoming the first set of finalists to do so, while Italy became the third World Cup champions to be eliminated from the group phase after Brazil in 1966 and France in 2002. As of 2026, this is the last knockout stage match played by Italy in the tournament.

Did You Know?

• The final was the first all-European final since Italy won the World Cup in 1982.
• It was the second final to be decided by a penalty shoot-out (1994 was the first, with Italy losing to Brazil on that occasion).
• It was the first final since 1978 in which neither Germany nor Brazil competed.
• It was the first final since 1938 in which neither Germany, Brazil nor Argentina competed.