Italy: Football champions of the world!

Italy outlasted France in a brutal World Cup final today that saw one of France’s greatest players ejected from the stadium. Forza Azzurri!

There’s only one professional sport in which it is possible to truly be the champion of the world: soccer. Or, in the rest of the world’s vocabulary, football. Or, in honor of Italy’s victory today, calcio.

France came out strong, scoring in the 7th minute on a questionable penalty. But Italy struck back immediately with a legitimate, hard-won goal in the 19th minute. What followed was a grueling defensive game for Italy as they were constantly pressed by an agressive French offense that took over twice as many shots as Italy. Another Italian goal was stolen away late in the game after a close off-side call.

But the most bizarre event occurred in overtime (110th minute) when French star and team captain Zinedine Zidane capped off an exchange of trash talk (and his career) by head-butting Marco Materazzi in the chest, knocking him to the ground. A tense minute followed in which it was unclear whether any of the referees had seen the ugly foul, but ref Horacio Elizondo finally stalked toward the offender with red card held high. Since Zidane has promised to retire this year, it looks like he’ll be ending on a very sour note indeed.

For more on the game, check out MSNBC’s coverage here and here.