2006 FIFA World Cup Final

"2006 World Cup" redirects here. For other competitions of that name, see 2006 World Cup (disambiguation).

"FIFA 2006" redirects here. For the video game, see FIFA 06.

This article is about the 2006 FIFA World Cup. For the video game, see 2006 FIFA World Cup (video game).

2006 FIFA World Cup
FIFA Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft Deutschland 2006
2006 FIFA World Cup official logo A time to make friends
Tournament details
Host country	Germany
Dates	9 June – 9 July (31 days)
Teams	32 (from 6 confederations)
Venue(s)	12 (in 12 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Italy (4th title)
Runners-up	France
Third place	Germany
Fourth place	Portugal
Tournament statistics
Matches played	64
Goals scored	147 (2.3 per match)
Attendance	3,359,439 (52,491 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Miroslav Klose (5 goals)
Best player	Zinedine Zidane
Best young player	Lukas Podolski
Best goalkeeper	Gianluigi Buffon

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six populated continents participated in the qualification process which began in September 2003. Thirty-one teams qualified from this process, along with the host nation, Germany, for the finals tournament.

Italy won the tournament, claiming their fourth World Cup title. They defeated France 5–3 in a penalty shootout in the final, afterextra time had finished in a 1–1 draw. Germany defeated Portugal 3–1 to finish in third place. Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Serbia & Montenegro, Trinidad & Tobago and Togo made their first appearances in the finals.

The 2006 World Cup stands as one of the most watched events in television history, garnering an estimated 26.29 billion non-unique viewers, compiled over the course of the tournament. The final attracted an estimated audience of 715.1 million people. The 2006 World Cup ranks fourth in non-unique viewers, behind the World Cup in 1994, 2002, and 1990. As the winner, Italy represented the World in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Final

Main article: 2006 FIFA World Cup Final

The final started with each side scoring within the first 20 minutes. Zinedine Zidane opened the scoring by converting a controversial seventh-minute penalty kick, which glanced off the underside of the crossbar and into the goal... before bouncing back up, hitting the crossbar again and bounced out of the goal. Marco Materazzi then levelled the scores in the 19th minute following an Andrea Pirlo corner. Both teams had chances to score the winning goal in normal time: Luca Toni hit the crossbar in the 35th minute for Italy (he later had a header disallowed for offside), while France were not awarded a possible second penalty in the 53rd minute when Florent Malouda went down in the box after a tackle from Gianluca Zambrott.

9 July 2006
20:0