Zidane bows out, pursued by demons

He is usually the most withdrawn of men. But demons lurk inside that shaven head. We knew this before last night; he missed part of the 1998 World Cup, which ended in great personal triumph, after a red card against Saudi Arabia. And the demons exploded into the open again last night.

The end result of the violent headbutt with which he felled Marco Materazzi on what should have been his night of nights was that Zinedine Zidane trudged off into retirement not gloriously, having helped return the chunky gold trophy to France, but with the whistles of the Olympiastadion crowd ringing in his ears.

There can be little doubt he was provoked. The cameras showed clearly that words were spoken between the two and the Italian centre-back, who ended up with both a goal and a penalty to his name, may also have pinched the French captain's chest.

There is little doubt too that he will be forgiven his last indiscretion. He has done enough in a golden decade at the pinnacle of the game to be recognised as one of the greats. His performance in the quarter-final against Brazil, full of the deftest touches and informed by sublime footballing vision, was probably the one individual display at this World Cup to be tinged with genius.

But it was still a desperately sad way to bring down the curtain on a wonderful career.

As the fireworks exploded and the confetti rained down on the joyful blue-shirted Italians, it was hard not to wonder what was going through his mind away from the spotlight in some unregarded corner. If it had been written somewhere that this would be the perfect finale, the script had gone terribly wrong. It had looked for a while, though, as if the evening's story-line would be very different.

After just seven minutes, following one of the most dramatic openings of this competition, les bleus had their noses in front - and Zizou had put them there.

Florent Malouda, put through on goal by a nod by Thierry Henry, who had just had to be revived with smelling salts, was adjudged to have been knocked off balance as he darted between Italian centre-backs Fabio Cannavaro and Materazzi. Penalty, decided referee Horacio Elizondo. Zidane's moment of glory had arrived.

There is a fine line, though, between foolishness and genius - and as he composed himself to try to place his kick beyond the reach of the world's best goalkeeper, the width of the line was about two inches. That is the difference between his audaciously chipped penalty hitting the underside of the crossbar and bouncing down behind the line - which is what happened - and it striking the woodwork and rebounding into play - which is what did not.

For the moment, his good fortune had held. He was free to turn, breathe a sigh of relief and devote the last moments of his international career - which had lifted French football to unprecedented heights - to defending the lead he had given them.

With the benefit of hindsight, though, we should perhaps have sensed that the happy ending craved by all of France would elude him.