Italy – the new world champions

Who would have thought that the Italians will win the World Cup? They did tonight, and I think they thoroughly deserve it. They were the most consistent team in the tournament from the first match.

Unlike the Italian teams of the past, this team showed more flair than just relying on their defending strength. And tonight against France, when they needed it most, they showed us again, how to defend properly.

No doubt the attacking flair was missing today. In fact Italy’s skilful playmaker Totti was totally out of the game. And what we saw was the tenacious defending passed on from past masters to the current crop.

Fabio Cannavaro was everywhere. So was Gennaro Gattuso. And when they failed, their keeper Gianluigi Buffon was there. And he made one outstanding save to stop a Zidane header from going in.

There was nothing the Italian defence could do against the French goal. In fact, I thought it was not a penalty at all. Still Zidane was ultra composed to chip the ball in, giving Buffon no chance at all. It took the Italians 12 minutes to draw level and the remaining 101 minutes saw the ball being played in the midfield area, giving us a clear clue that this match was heading to penalties.

Once Zidane got sent off on the second period of extra period – for a stupid moment of madness – Italians did look to have an upper hand for a moment. Mind you, that was a period when France were without Zidane (red card), Thierry Henry (substituted), Ribery (substituted) and Vieira (injured).

Still nothing came about. So at the end of the World Cup this year, the script will read that Italy won it – for the fourth time - on penalties. Never masters of the penalty kick, the Italians tonight scored all five.

Now these triumphant players will have to return home to the daunting task of facing the match fixing scandal involving some of the big clubs in their country.

Read more from my World Cup blog.