Marco Materazzi “ZIDANE IS NOT A SAINT EITHER”
Twenty years ago, Italy won its fourth and last World Cup against France at the end of a scenario that no one has forgotten. The Italian defender, victim of Zidane's headbutt, and the number 10 of the Blues were the protagonists indi
By Valentin Pauluzzi, in Milan (Italy). Hugues Lawson Photos-body/the team
THE APPROACH OF THE MATCH "CANNAVARO WAS ALL PALE”
“The semi-final against Germany (2-0 A.P.) was an early final, in the sense that we faced them in a stadium dedicated to their cause and where they had never lost (Dortmund). We had a responsibility to all the Italians who immigrated to Germany, who, in case of defeat, would have been mocked by the Germans. We were stronger than our opponents, we finished this match with four strikers (Totti, Gilardino, Iaquinta and Del Piero). Marcello Lippi (the coach) thought we were invincible, indestructible.
Despite the stress of overtime, we came out of this half boosted, not drained. We watched the other half between France and Portugal (1-0) at the restaurant. At the final whistle, Fabio Cannavaro was all pale. "Marco, they are strong..." He had suffered from David
Trezeguet's golden goal six years earlier in the euro final (2-1 B.e.o.). "Yes, but I wasn't there last time," I replied jokingly, because it was necessary to de-dramatize, and I added: "Remember that I am lucky."The day before the final, we were supposed to train in the stadium, but there was a deluge, so we did the session in Dusseldorf, at our base camp, then we went to the olympiastadion in Berlin just to walk on the lawn.
By bus, we drove along the annex field where France was training. They were doing tiki-taka in the pouring rain, I looked away, they were full of confidence. Without taking anything away from my teammates, technically, the French had something extra. My most important goal at the World Cup was the one against the Czech Republic in the pools (2-0), it allowed us to finish first, to have a simpler route and to avoid the part of the table with Brazil, France, Portugal, Spain ... that was the turning point. There, I thought to myself: "OK, we can go all the way to the final. »”
THE GAME PLAN “WE HAD TO DEFEND LIKE ITALIANS”
“We knew each other so well, them and us, that the video sessions didn't do much good. There were no tactical secrets, but rather surprises such as Franck Ribery and Florent Malouda, who had immense qualities but had not yet expressed them to the maximum. We knew that Zidane had stepped up, but Patrick Vieira was the backbone of the team. It was he who allowed France to get out of the pools, where we hoped that they would not win against Togo (2-0, Vieira's first goal). Zidane did the job then.
There was no anti-zizou plan. We decided to mark it in the zone, because, individually, we would have struggled too much, made too many mistakes. He was so smart in his movements. We also wanted to prevent Thierry Henry from going into depth. Moreover, his only dangerous incursions, he made them on the left flank to put the others in scoring condition.
The idea was to rotate the ball to get it to (Andrea) Pirlo, but Henry often went down on him, so (Gennaro) Gattuso was helping with the build-up. Everyone said he was a guard dog, but he also had quality with the ball. I met him in Perugia when he was 15 years old and he did additional individual sessions to refine his technique and his vision. Reaching (Francesco) Totti was complicated, he had Claude Makelele and Vieira on his back. The other option was therefore the long pass for Fabio Grosso, who took his left corridor and was not always followed by Ribery. On our right side there was Malouda, which had piston characteristics and covered better. I also couldn't abuse the raises on Grosso, because it would have become too mechanical, and above all I couldn't "jump" too much Pirlo, who would have screamed because he wanted the ball! Finally, we had the humility to tell ourselves that we had to defend like Italians, then try to hurt them when the opportunity presented itself. It happened partly like this.”
THE FIRST PERIOD "CANNAVARO TELLS ME: "VIEIRA IS AFRAID OF YOU""
"There is a Cannavaro-henry duel from the first minute that puts "Titi" on the ground. I looked at Fabio, looking like he was saying "we're not letting ourselves be fooled this time", because, three years earlier, during an Inter-arsenal (1-5, in the Champions League), he had a calf problem after five minutes and with Fabio we had also exchanged a look, like "If only ..." Except that he had scored a double and delivered two assists. The referee quickly pulled out two yellow cards on (Gianluca) Zambrotta and (Willy) Sagnol, but I don't remember a rough match, even if it was very physical. The average height of the players on the field had to be high. On the action of the penalty (7th), Cannavaro wanted to anticipate, this is his strong point, but he gets sucked into Zambrotta's zone. I'll stop in time. I mislead the referee because my knee is high, Malouda touches himself with his leg, it unbalances him. I'm not saying that he did it on purpose, but for me it's not a penalty (there is, however, contact between the Italian's left foot and the Frenchman's right foot).
Zidane's panenka is legitimate, it's his last match, he's confident. He would have been a bit swaggering if he had done that on the score of 4-0. But at 0-0, it is synonymous with personality, he had "a big pair"... Limit, I regret not having tried one myself too during the penalty shootout. After this provoked penalty, I deflect a cross with my head and it's close to finishing in goal against my side. There, I would not have been able to return to Italy... My big chance is to have equalized quickly (19th). In the morning, we had worked on the set-pieces, Cannavaro, Vieira's teammate at Juve, told me: "Patrick is afraid of you, go to him. "I am a defender and I saw his limitations on marking, he was only looking at the ball while you have to look at your opponent too. If he had grabbed my jersey like I did later with Zidane just before his red (110th), I wouldn't have been able to jump with so much impulse and stay in the air for so long. We had several actions of this kind including Toni's goal disallowed for offside in the second half (62nd).
France could not seem to sense the danger on this aspect. When I mark, I look for my family with my gaze, they were on the opposite side, a ray of sunshine illuminated my wife and my children. I dedicated this goal to my mom who I lost when I was 15.”
THE SECOND HALF “EITHER I WAS TAKING THE BALL OR I WAS MAKING A TACTICAL FOUL”
“At 1-0 for them at half-time, we wouldn't have won, because they were strong physically, technically and in counter-attacks. There is quickly another contentious action on Malouda and, for me, there was more penalty on this action than on the other. Zambrotta hits Malouda because he can't stop (54th). I think the referee didn't have the courage to blow a second penalty for France. When Vieira came out injured (56th), France lost a lot in technical, physical quality and experience. But it didn't smell like 1-1. If they had scored again, spaces would have opened up for them, and it would have been harmful against Henry or Malouda. In fact, 1-1 was a good score for us.
Lippi made two changes quite early (61st). Iaquinta instead of Totti to gain depth and because he had a chest.
And with Pirlo-gattuso-de Rossi, we felt more calm in defense. We switched to 4-3-3. There was also the entry of Del Piero (86'), who had more of a sense of purpose than Camoranesi and was adroit on a free kick. And then, he scored against Germany in the semi-finals. Me, I tried to keep containing the French attackers with the idea of not letting them play in support or go deep, even if I knew that Fabio could cover me diagonally. As soon as I tried the anticipation, I had to be sure. Cannavaro, him, if he was on the ground, he would get up like a spring. I was either taking the ball or I was making a tactical mistake.”
THE EXTENSION “NOT EXPECTING HIS BALL SHOT WAS AN ADVANTAGE”
“France lacked the lucidity to try the extra pass. We, we were forcing them to shoot from afar because with (Gianluigi) Buffon, we knew that we wouldn't take a goal, even on a shot at 250 km / h. "Gigi" slams a header from Zidane (104th) and I fight with Gattuso because he didn't follow him while I was on Trezeguet. The next time, in order not to take a goal – or not to be insulted by "Rino", I don't know which was the worst (smile) – I lean on Zidane when there is still a center. He gets offended and says to me: "If you want the shirt, I'll give it to you after the match. "I answer what I answer him. After all, one of the most famous trash-talkers in history is Michael Jordan, so good... My opinion is that I was provoked after making a defensive gesture from experience. If Vieira had done the same thing on my goal, I wouldn't have gotten upset, I would have told him: "Well done, you got me, next time I'll be smarter. "This is football, not the Wild West.
The fact of not expecting his ball shot was an advantage, because, if I had felt it, I would have made a hand gesture, for example, to push him away, and I think the referee would have sent us both off. I don't even have any doubts about it. Since I didn't expect it, my body wasn't rigid either, so I didn't hurt myself, because such a strong headbutt could have created physical damage. When I'm down, I wait for him to be expelled (110th). And I'm going to be honest, I wouldn't have gotten up until it did. No one on the ground had seen him, except Buffon. It could end eleven-on-eleven or ten-on-ten. Then we spent ten minutes outnumbered, we tried not to take any chances. I hit the last ball of the game, clearing as far as possible from the head on a last cross into the box. It was a liberation, I am not ashamed to say it because I knew that France could hurt us even at ten. Trezeguet (100th) and Wiltord (107th) had entered the game, we had to be on the lookout until the end.”
THE SHOTS ON GOAL “I WAS NOT AFRAID OF BARTHEZ”
“At the final whistle, we are happy that our adventure ended like this. The most beautiful shots on goal were those taken by De Rossi and Trezeguet, and bad luck meant that David's did not come in for 20cm. We hadn't projected ourselves on the
number of shots on goal that "Gigi" was going to stop, because until then he was not a great specialist. It was after that he became one. (Fabien) Barthez, I didn't fear him, because he wasn't very tall (1.80 m). If you have a Van der Sar in front of you and you don't have the personality, the probability can increase to 80-20% in favor of the guard. It was Lippi who chose the shooters and I was waiting for him to designate me, I just wasn't convinced to shoot second.
I didn't shoot a spectacular peno even though I was a specialist, because I was hitting them in a club. It happens in front of the French kop who whistles at me, the referee makes me put the ball back, but all this pressure, it's beautiful! The late Carletto Mazzone, my former coach (in Perugia), used to say: "I wasn't the one who told you to become a footballer. "It's a risk that we take but that we also savor. After my shot on goal, I returned to the central circle, but because of the stress, I quickly went to the opposite corner post, all by myself, in front of the grandstand where there were the Italian fans and my family. The first one who came to kiss me was the physio, then "Gigi" Riva (top scorer in the history of the Nazionale and head of delegation at the time), who made me aware of what had just happened: "I would exchange your goal and your shot on goal tonight for all the goals of my career. »”
THE POST-MATCH “HENRY IS A GREAT LORD”
“I am not a hypocrite. Unless it's an ex-teammate, I prefer to leave the opponents alone. To go and console them is a lack of respect, you know that he is the saddest in the world and you the happiest. I exchanged my jersey with "Titi" Henry, who is a great lord, despite everything that has happened. I don't know how many would have done it, especially with me. This gesture is worth more than many words, and so he has my jersey, unless he threw it away! Sepp Blatter (the president of FIFA at the time) invented a miserable excuse for himself (he had been whistled by the public before the match) not to come and give us the trophy. A few months later, he came to apologize in Rome, where we were greenlighting. I didn't greet him: he had disrespected us too much. (Raymond) Domenech, on the other hand, I like him. He always said I was the best that night, he really understood the game. He is not only talking about the expulsion but also about the goal I scored, about my performance.”
WHAT'S LEFT OF IT “IT WOULD HAVE BEEN TO HIS CREDIT IF ZIDANE HAD SHAKEN MY HAND AFTER THE MATCH”
"Many people say that Italy has since suffered the curse of the scenario of this final, but the curse is that we won the fourth star and the Italian football institutions thought: "Now we will win the fifth and equal Brazil. "Whereas France, which can field four typical teams today, continued to build after its victory in 1998. We stopped at 07/09/2006. Euro 2021, twenty players won it, not the system. For France, I represent the one who had Zidane deported, but, apart from a few "kekes" on social networks, there has never been a single time when my family and I were disrespected when I came to France.
I'm not a saint, but neither is Zidane, since it wasn't his first gesture. Remember his expulsion in 1998 (against Saudi Arabia). But, for me, these are things that stay on the pitch, it would have been to his credit if he had shaken my hand after the game and we would have left it at that. I even had more to lose, because I would have been portrayed as the wrongdoer, I would have remained the villain and he would have become the lord. He probably lost an opportunity, I don't know why. Since then, I still haven't met him, and I would have no problem doing so. I respect him and I thank him for what he has done in his career, as a player and as a coach. I consider myself more of a football fan who, with the strength of his will, was able to participate in this kind of big game.”
