Curtain drawn on a great event

To begin with it is the scale of the sporting event. Since it is pure sport there is no controversy. There is camaraderie on a world scale. The event attracts the best footballers of the world. A healthy, happy wind blows through the whole event and it is a feat to keep up the tempo for an entire month. If the footballers are the greatest attraction the public is equally important.

Glued to their seats in the stadiums in various cities in Germany culminating in the grand final in capital Berlin, it is an event that will be long remembered. Football fans and fanatics and there are millions spread over the world. And of course there are many more millions watching the event in their home on TV screens. It's the joy of sharing moments of the football match with friends and family alike. World Cup brought moments of both unbounded joy and huge disappointments, to see the fancied team losing.

Bangladesh has lived sleepless nights, thanks to World Football. The matches were played at nights according to our time and most of them between 1a.m. and 3 a.m. How could one miss Ronaldo heading the ball in the corner of the adversary's net? Bangladesh, with its football playing dreams left for the future, nevertheless got involved as if its own team was playing. The country was decked with flags from allover the world. They were flying atop high buildings. There was also a brisk sale of flags. There was fierce rivalry amongst fans and the country was evenly divided between Argentina and Brazil, two top football playing nations of the world. Their unexpected early elimination from the Cup, spread gloom within Bangladesh. The fans would have great difficulty in locating these countries on the map, but that did not matter. The names conjured ideas of affinity.

Football, the glorious game of uncertainty, along with high drama, brought the most unexpected two teams face to face -- France and Italy -- in the World Cup final. People could easily identify with Zinedine Zidan, the Algerian born, who all his life has played for France and == of the highest kind. This World Cup was his swan song. And from a hesitant start on the road to final, Zidan, the Captain steered his team to the final to face neighbour Italy. France had just done the dragon slaying by sending packing Brazil by a brilliant goal engineered between Zidan and Thiery Henry.

Then began the nerve tingling final at the stroke of midnight Bangladesh Time. Zidan scored a magnificent goal from a penalty. Shortly thereafter the Italians scored an equaliser from a spectacular header. This situation continued for the full ninety minutes and on one occasion a sure goal bounced back from the cross bar denying a victory to the Italians. Similarly a powerful header from Zidan was saved by the Italian goalkeeper in an awe inspiring fashion. It was 30 minutes of extra time. The deadlock could not be broken. Meanwhile the good natured Zidan made a bad foul on an Italian player and was shown the Red Card. Thus ended in ignominy a great career of a brilliant footballer.

It was penalty time. How the French team must have waited for Zidan to put the ball deftly in the corner of the Italian net. But he was sitting on the spectators. The goalkeepers had to face the penalties. Italians scored all five and the French, Oh! Horror, they missed one of the penalties. The Berlin stadium became a sea of Italian flags and the Italians, naturally, went wild!

Arshad-uz-Zaman is a former Ambassador.