Filip Bondy

BERLIN - Imagine Michael Jordan head-butting John Stockton, acting like Dennis Rodman instead of making the winning shot.

It is an absurd notion, but there you have it. Zinedine Zidane goes into the history books now as a knucklehead, not a genius. He went out like a thug, butting Marco Materazzi, when he might have gone out the hero.

“It’s a shame,” said France coach Raymond Domenech, about Zidane’s exit. “You can say Zidane being sent off was the key element of the game.”

It was downright sabotage, is what it was. Here was the team’s superstar, its choreographer, heading down the stretch of a championship game that could go either way, maybe to France. And then he ruined everything, booted the happy ending way, way out of bounds.

Italy won itself a tiebreaker, finally, captured its fourth World Cup title on kicks, 5-4, after a 1-1 tie. The Italians had earned this one, for sure. They knocked in all their penalties, without a hint of the usual psychic meltdown. They were certainly the best team in the tournament, and probably the better side on this night.

It’s funny how these tiebreakers always seem so arbitrary, yet always go to the more formidable side. It’s happened with Brazil in 1994, and it happened to Italy against France in a losing cause at the European championships in 2000.

But the title match was still up for grabs on Sunday, when Zidane knocked the air right out of his team in overtime. He had this chance to leave a champion, and instead disappeared into a dark tunnel filled with grave questions about his sanity and sportsmanship. He never came out to join the closing ceremonies, to congratulate or console opponents or teammates.

The evening had begun more hopefully for Zidane. He’d scored early on, in the seventh minute, on a cute little penalty kick, becoming only the fourth player to manage goals in two separate World Cup finals. Zidane coyly waited for Gianluigi Buffon to dive right and then lobbed the ball straight ahead, against the crossbar and down across the line.

He very nearly scored the winner in overtime, a header saved with one desperate hand by Gianluigi Buffon in the 104^th minute.

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And then, as he has done before when things are not going so well, Zidane went a little bonkers. Forced to the wings by Italy’s defenders, tired of the physical marking he’d received, Zidane head-butted Materazzi in the chest, knocking him flat.

This was a blatant, stupid foul in the 110^th minute, and not the first time he’d done something so loony. Zidane had committed the same foul a half dozen years ago when he was playing for Juventus in the Champions League, another head butt against Hamburg. He’d stomped on a Saudi player at the 1998 World Cup, getting suspended then for two matches.

There were hints of his anger, just minutes before the head butt. Zidane had given a ball back to Italy, as required by etiquette, but he purposely knocked it out along the sideline for a difficult throw-in, rather than kick it to Buffon. This infuriated the Italians.

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Moments later, he was backpedaling with Materazzi, far from the ball, exchanging a little trash talk, when the madness overtook him. He made no attempt to disguise the head butt, which was seen not by the referee, Horacio Elizondo, but by a referee’s assistant, a linesman.

Elizondo consulted with the linesman, then showed the red card to Zidane, as was required. After surviving 10 minutes shorthanded, France was without four of its top penalty kick takers—due to substitutions, injuries and that red card. Zidane, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Franck Ribery were all on the bench, or in the shower.

“You could see the Italian team obviously was waiting for the penalty kicks,” Domenech said.

That tiebreaker was close, anyway. There wasn’t a single save by either goalkeeper, Buffon or Fabien Barthez. David Trezeguet, one of France’s most experienced and able players, slammed his shot into the crossbar. It bounced straight down, then out.

That was all the breathing room Italy needed. Fabio Grosso put away the winner, the clinching fifth penalty. Italy grabbed the trophy, slid and dashed and danced around to celebrate its first title in 24 years.

Zidane was nowhere to be found. He had turned a fairy tale into a nightmare, with one heavy-headed nod of the noggin. He was Rodman, not Jordan.

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