France's Zinedine Zidane won the Golden Ball award for the World Cup's best player, despite being sent-off during the final game defeat to Italy. Despite Zidane's outburst of head butting Marco Materazzi in the chest during the second period of overtime the legendary French player was awarded the prestigious award. The 35-year-old-midfielder polled 2012 points to beat Italians Fabio Cannavaro (1977 points) and Andrea Pirlo (715 points). Journalists who covered the tournament were polled decide who would be named winner of the award. Zidane played his last game on Sunday, scoring a penalty and leaving the pitch to a farewell of thousands of glaring bulbs flashing photos of his career-ending exit after being red-carded. It was to be his last act as a professional player and, with the French missing his skill during the penalty shootout, Italy went on to claim the World Cup title, much to France coach Raymond Domenech's dismay.
Zidane being sent-off in the final "Zidane would normally take one of the first penalties in a shoot-out but his not being there didn't change much," he said after the match as reported by the official FIFA website. "I'd have preferred substituting him five minutes before the end so he could have received a different ovation from the crowd to the one he got." Despite the unfortunate event the 1998 World Cup winner will retire from football with one of the most prestigious awards of the cup. Zidane has under his belt three FIFA Player of the Year awards (1998, 2000, 2003) and a 1998 European Footballer of the Year honor. The remaining contenders were Henry Thierry, Patrick Vieira, Michael Ballack, Miroslav Klose, Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluca Zambrotta and Maniche. Klose claimed the Golden Shoe award for the tournament's leading scorer with five goals while Buffon was named goalkeeper of the tournament.
