France captain Zinedine Zidane, sent off for head-butting Marco Materazzi late in Sunday’s World Cup final loss to Italy, won the Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player.
The results were released Monday in Berlin by FIFA. Voting closed at midnight Sunday.
Zidane received 2,012 points in the vote by journalists covering the tournament, beating Italians Fabio Cannavaro (1,977 points) and Andrea Pirlo (715 points).
Zidane, who put France ahead with a penalty kick in the opening minutes, was given a red card after slamming his head into Materazzi’s chest during the second period of extra time.
It was his last act as a professional player and one that was criticized in France and abroad.
“The blue angel was transformed into a demon,” Le Parisien newspaper said.
Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said he didn’t know what Materazzi said to Zidane, but “we can imagine that there was a provocation.”
He added Zidane’s act was “unpardonable.”
The French sports daily L’Equipe wrote: “This morning, Zinedine, what do we tell our children, and all those for whom you were the living role model?”
The final earned a 7.0 fast national rating for ABC, a 180 percentage increase from the 2002 final in Japan. It also was the third-highest rated men’s soccer game on ABC since the network resumed airing the World Cup in 1994, when the tournament was held in the United States. Only the 1994 final, when Brazil beat Italy on penalty kicks (9.5), and a second-round match that year between the U.S. and Brazil (9.3) had higher ratings.
