Zidane headbutting Materazzi in the World Cup Final, and his last action as a footballer. What a way to bow out.
I was going to for this, too, but perhaps the image doesn't tell exactly why - I'll explain a little what it meant to me:
I used to watch a fair bit of Italian football and the style and finesse of Zizou was second to none. I've never seen such a languid player, who also has such a high level of technique. The culmination of his play for Juventus was to earn a move to join the 'greats' at Madrid, alongside Beckham, Figo, Brazilian Ronaldo, and Raul - some of the biggest names in that decade playing alongside each other. Zidane was one of those true players where you'd look forward to them getting the ball because you never had a clue what they'd manage to pull out next, in fact you were pretty sure they had no idea either.
For the WC final, that career and that guile and energy as for sure waning, however Zidane had driven France to win the WC before, scoring twice in the '98 final - so one last magic show was on the cards - and millions of fans sat and watched the big man with the magic feet to give him a proper send off. The manner of the dismissal was pretty shocking (a headbut to the chest), not least because it seemed at the time so out of the blue, especially so due to Zidane having an excellent record with discipline and been seen as an excellent role-model who trained hard and lived a life focused to maximising his 'God-given abilities', and was by all accounts a devout man. To obliterate all of that in a moment, to leave his legacy tainted, and for it to be the last action of top-top player, was definitely quite a sad way to end a career which shone with so many moments which gave fans true elation.
