No big puzzle With a valediction for Zidane, Eva Dadrian and Habibou Hamadou Maiga address the prominence of African footballers and the scourge of racism For two weeks, the five African teams that qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2006 played their hearts out in Germany, but sadly only Ghana made it through to the second round. The results for Angola, Tunis, Togo and especially Côte d'Ivoire, who qualified after beating Egypt and Cameroon, were very disappointing and led many African football fans to criticise trainers, managers and even players. Africans from all over the continent were jubilant when Ghana, on its first ever visit to the World Cup and playing beautiful attacking football, became the only African team to proceed to the second round. Unfortunately, Ghana's Black Stars were crushed by an inspired Brazil (3-0) and had to drop out from the race. Nevertheless, even after the Black Stars' defeat, Africans passionately followed the World Cup. From Cairo to Cape Town and from Lagos to Nairobi, every single match was being watched closely. It hardly mattered anymore whether Côte d'Ivoire's Elephants, captained by Didier Drogba, were kicked out at the first round, or Angola's Black Impalas maiden appearance at a World Cup ended up with defeat, or Tunisia' Eagles of Carthage failed to overcome the first-round psychological hurdle, or Togo's Sparrow Hawks did not score a single point after playing three games. What really mattered was that African footballers were still running the show on all the football pitches in Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt, and finally in Berlin. Indeed, African footballers dominated the 2006 World Cup. Born either in Africa, in the French West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc.) or in Europe, the "black" footballers were the top stars of the world's most popular sporting event. In general, Africans rank among the best footballers in the world. They adorn the best football clubs in the world, and France, more than any other country, has lined up the world's most successful players, all Africans, for three successive World Cups in 1998, 2002 and 2006. The 2006 French national team was a real "dream team". Football pundits around the world dubbed it "the old men", yet "Les Noirs", no longer Les Bleus, took France to the final game against Italy in Berlin. Eat your heart out Messieurs Le Pen and Nicholas Sarkozy -- it was Thuram, Zidane, Henry, Makelele, Abidal, Wiltord and Gallas who made it to that pitch last Sunday. Lilian Thuram, born in Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe) and the most capped player (121 times) for France, received in 1998, like the rest of the French national team, the Légion d'Honneur, France's highest decoration. Patrick Vieira, born in Dakar, Senegal, is one of the most powerful footballers in both stamina and physical strength. Playing for Arsenal and Juventus he was instrumental in France's victory in the 1998 World Cup. Zinedine Zidane, the Marseille-born Kabyle from Algeria, Zizou to his fans and Yaz (from Yazid his middle name) to his very close friends and teammates, wore the captain's armband throughout the 2006 tournament, until his unexpected, unbelievable and very sad sending-off for head-butting Marco Materazzi, the Italian defender. It looked like a deliberate and unprovoked moment of madness, a reminder of the characteristic pride that cost him the Golden Boot in 2000, but it is now obvious that Materazzi had said something to provoke Zidane. It was a double final for Zidane who knew that this last match of the World Cup would also be his last time playing for the French team. It was his quest to win this World Cup, for the second time in eight years, and to enter his name into the pantheon of world football for decades to come. With the headline "An exceptional final", the mainstream sports paper L'Equipe explained how it was an "exceptionally dramatic" final. Firstly, it finished on penalties, for only the second time in the history of the World Cup; secondly, Zidane was the "hero of the final" -- an early hero with his seventh minute penalty, but a tragic one upon receiving the 14th red card of his career in the 109th minute. Under the title "Italy, finally", Le Figaro said that Italy won the world championship title for the fourth time at the end of a match that was far from controlled. Zidane, "our national Zizou", finished an extraordinary career on a bad note. Coming close to professional misconduct, the Number 10's head-butt is a sad signature to end his golden book. In an article entitled "Squadra Azzurra breaks the dream of the Blues", French coach Raymond Domenech is quoted in Le Monde : "It's sad when a great player finishes his career like that. I would have preferred to take him out myself, five minutes before the end, so he would have had a fitting farewell. I did not expect an end like that." In the album of memories left to us by Zidane, one will prefer to remember the two blows of head which sent the ball to the back of the Brazilian net in the 1998 final, rather than the blow of 2006. It may be some time before Zidane's fans find out what really happened between their idol and Materazzi, but already accusations of "racist comments" from the Italian, are being suggested for Zidane's uncharacteristic reaction. It is expected that football and all sports in general are racism-free. In addition, the 2006 World Cup's slogan was "Say No to Racism" but after hearing "monkey chants" from the stands every time an African footballer touched the ball, no football fan, African or not, will forget when a Spanish television crew caught Luis Argones, Spain's coach, saying of Thierry Henry, "give him the ball, and then show that black little shit that you are better than him." Third place is best Third feels first as Germans become "champions of the hearts", writes Katharina Goetze As football was coming home, the hosts of the 2006 World Cup were left feeling prouder than they had been for a long time of their country, their football and themselves. Although Klinsmann's team did not manage to win the medal many Germans had hoped for, the mood from Munich to Hamburg was euphoric after a glorious 3-1 victory over Portugal in the so-called "little final". It seemed like Germany was the true winner after all, as millions of fans celebrated bronze up and down the country. "Third place is being fêted like first", reported Reinhard Mohr in the investigative weekly Der Spiegel. "There is a comfortable new Germany-feeling: We don't always have to be first to be happy." Mohr said that an all-encompassing, national sense of unity had long been suspect, but now Germans could "finally say 'we', too, without being ashamed." Praise was heaped on coach Jèrgen Klinsmann, who had been heavily criticised for his decision to do the job from his home in California in the run-up to the tournament, as well as "Kaiser" Franz Beckenbauer. In his role as president of the World Cup 2006 organising committee, wrote Robert Ide in the Berlin- based Tagesspiegel, Beckenbauer "had the guts to defy the Féderation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) for moderate ticket prices, free fan parties and a cultural programme that attracted nearly as many fans as the players in the stadia." Despite world-class performances by striker Bastian Schweinsteiger and goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, the German team "does not yet possess the cleverness that we lacked in the bitter semi-final against Italy. We did not win the World Cup, as Klinsi had wanted", the national tabloid Bild criticised. Maybe it is even a good thing that Germany did not win, wrote Moritz Mèller- Wirth in the quality weekly Die Zeit, since everything that will follow, namely the European Championship in 2008, would have been accompanied by the notion that nothing can get as good as this World Cup. "And," asked Mèller-Wirth, "does Franz Beckenbauer not deserve to keep the German monopoly on the double title (both as player and coach) for at least another four years, as a small thank you for bringing the World Cup to Germany?" Kahn spoke for many observers, who like him wondered what the public reaction would have been if Germany had actually made it to number one. In many ways the gratitude for the team's achievement appeared impossible to exceed. "It may sound strange, but in some ways coming third is better than second," wrote Martin Vogt in the conservative weekly Focus. If you come second in a World Cup, Vogt explained, you get medals hung around your neck after you have just been defeated. The Germans however came third after a victory with dream goals. Marc Young summarised the nation's outlook in the English edition of Der Spiegel : "becoming world champs would have been big. It would have been bold. But would it have been as touching as what happened after winning third? Not a chance."
