Zizou

I’m numb.

I’ve been numb since the 110th minute. I’m not sure what I witnessed. What was that?

All through the match, there was something wrong with Zidane. Right from the first half when he took his "cheeky" penalty kick. I kept running that over in my mind. I thought, what a risky, crazy way to take that penalty. What if he had missed and France had lost 1-0? Then Zidane would have been single-handedly responsible for his team’s loss. The cheeky penalty is our first clue. There’s a twisted take on heroism at work here. It’s like he decided he was the leader and his shoulders were broad enough to bear the entire loss and shame and everything the World Cup entails. It would be his responsibility and nobody else’s.

And then the beautiful missed header. If he wasn’t going to be the hero, he would be the goat.

And then he pulled the inexplicable "Figo" in the 110th minute. Like he wanted to be single-handedly responsible for the team’s loss. For the whole nation’s loss. There’s a logic in that lapse of discipline, I’m convinced. He sensed, he knew, they weren’t going to win, so he decided to shoulder it all alone.

Can any other player be blamed for the loss? Well there’s poor David Trezeguet. He made Domenech look like a genius for not playing him. But there’s nobody else. Not even Barthez. All Italy’s kicks were good. All the focus was, is and will be on Zidane. Some kind of mystical self-sacrifice went on today. At least that’s what I see in my numbness.

Blogging on the beautiful victorious Azzurris will follow. Only not yet.