World cup and Zizou

Finally the world cup has come to end. Good-bye sleepless nights. Good-bye junk food. Good-bye Luis Figo, Hernan Crespo, Oliver Kahn. And oh yes, good-bye Zinedine Zidane.

This World Cup had a funny way of choosing its winner. Eliminate the cream and crown the icing. The debutants had come with conviction. First down was Czech Rep., beaten back by Ghana. Then came USA. Ghana was having the time of their lives. The next big teams to bow out were Brazil and Argentina. Hmmm.. How can I forget England?
So then, France, Italy, Germany and not so convincing Portugal marched ahead. As someone said rightly, it was bound to become a European World Cup.

Then at this stage, I figured that it was high time to change my favorite team, Brazil. So then, France got all my support. And in the finals… it all went topsy-turvy (including me;)). From 1-1 in the allotted and extra time, Les Bleus went down unbelievably. I was quite confident of France’s triumph over the cup though there was no doubt about Italy’s solid defense. But but but … But no, unlike others I don’t blame Zizou, the hero. He’s still one of my heroes like before, let people say what they want to. He is after all a human before a footballer. No sensible man can ever tolerate maa-behen ki gaali.

Before also he had shown his emotions while playing and had once incurred a 5-match ban, the time he head-butted Jochen Keintz in 2000. It had been said that he can “erupt into shocking violence that is as sudden as it is inexplicable”.

Zidane said once, “It’s hard to get me over the top. But when I’m over it, you’re over.”

Sometimes I feel that it was a high level politics played by Materazzi to oust Zidane from the game at that crucial stage. How cheap, if that was so!! What a way to say good-bye to a fellow sportsperson. Zizou, I am with you.

Current song- Badi nazuk hai ye manzil mohabbat ka safar hai – Jagjit Singh