World Cup 2006

A bit after the fact, here you have some pictures of the final match of the World Cup football: France - Italy. The game where Zidane exited his career with the famous head-butt. Italy won.

The phenomenon of football is in France not nearly the social issue that it is, for example, in Holland. All the time during the World Cup no-one was interested in it at all, not until France won the semi-finals from Brazil and there were just a few days to go to the finals. No French flags in every street and every shop - this kind of thing, which in Holland so sickens me, blissfully absent. For the final match, however, a very large screen was put out on the Promenade des Anglais, and thousands of people came to watch. Another striking contrast to how this would have been in Holland: the crowd was completely quiet during the game, no fighting, even practically no shouting - and when lost, everyone simply went home and the 25% Italians in Nice took over the streets..

Crowd watches match on the Promenade

Meanwhile, the beach lies quiet

Some fireworks when Italy won