00:00It was the final match of his professional career, but he was about to throw it all away
00:04in one brutal moment. It seemed absurd. Zinedine Zidane was France's captain. It was the 2006
00:11World Cup final between Italy and France, and after supposedly quitting international football
00:16two years earlier, Zidane had come out of retirement to make this tournament his swan
00:21song. He basically dragged France through qualifying, through the knockouts, and into
00:25the final. But now, after one violent outburst in the 110th minute and the score locked at 1-all,
00:32he was being ejected from the most important match of his life, leaving his teammates to fend for
00:37themselves a man down. Now, it certainly wasn't unheard of for Zidane to get a little headbutty.
00:43Throughout his career, he'd earned himself 14 red cards, including one for headbutting a Hamburg
00:48player in the Champions League. But he only had 10 minutes of play left in his final professional
00:53game. So it was surprising that he would want to go out like this. But the truth is, Zidane wasn't
00:59exactly in a good headspace heading into this final. His mother had been taken to hospital that
01:04week. His sister was the one sitting at her bedside, and she'd been calling Zidane through the entire
01:09day with updates on his mother's condition. But despite all of that happening behind the scenes,
01:14Zidane was determined to give this final absolutely everything. In the seventh minute,
01:19after France had won a penalty, he had the audacity to take a Panenka, chipping it gently down the
01:24middle against the best goalkeeper in the world, off the underside of the crossbar and in. However,
01:29his efforts were counteracted when Marco Materazzi scored a header to make Italy level only 12 minutes
01:35later. So as the game dragged into extra time and the same man who'd foiled France's lead continued to
01:41pester and irritate Zidane by incessantly grabbing him and pulling on his shirt, Zidane started to crack.
01:48At first, it was just words. Zidane told Materazzi,
01:51if you want my shirt so much, I'll give it to you after the game. Just a playful insult,
01:56really. Nothing too over the top. But that's when Materazzi disgustingly replied,
02:00I'd prefer the whore that is your sister. Zidane exploded. He headbutted Materazzi
02:05into the ground and he held himself back from doing much worse. Zidane received a red card,
02:11was sent off the field and on his way out of the last professional game he would ever play,
02:15who walked straight past the World Cup trophy he'd been battling so hard for throughout the
02:21entire tournament. The final went to a penalty shootout and without their captain and expert
02:25penalty taker, France lost. However, in the aftermath, despite his actions leading to their
02:31ultimate failure, Zidane maintained that he didn't regret his decision.
