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Italy won its 4th World Cup and its first since 1982, but the soccer world is still focused on France’s Zinedine Zidane.

Zidane was hit with a red card in extra time after delivering a vicious head butt to the chest of Marco Materrazzi. France still made it to a penalty shootout without their best player, but David Trezeguet hit the bar with his kick and Italy’s Fabio Grosso hit the clincher for a 5-3 margin.

The victory was of course sweet for the Italians no matter what the circumstances were. This was a squad that gave up only one goal during the entire World Cup, and had lost all three of their previous shootouts in World Cup events. That included a shootout loss to Brazil in the 1994 final.

Ironically, Zidane won the Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player even though his prowess in shooting penalty kicks could have made the difference for France. Zidane is now retired from the game, and his storied career will always include his final act on the field.

In the Wimbledon final, tennis enthusiasts were treated to the match that they all wanted to see. Roger Federer was 55-0 this year against all opponents not named Rafael Nadal. Nadal has had Federer’s number with a 6-1 all-time record against him, including a win in this year’s French Open final.

In yesterdays match, Federer won the first set 6-0 as Nadal seemed to wilt under Wimbledon’s spotlight. However, Nadal is an emotional, never say die player who leaves every ounce of his energy out on the court. Nadal was up 5-4 in the second set and was on serve, but Federer broke him and eventually won in a tie-breaker.

Even though Nadal won the third set 7-6, the match was really lost when he failed to serve out the second set. Federer was not going to lose three straight sets on grass, and he proved it by winning the fourth set, 6-3 to win the match. Federer has now won four straight Wimbledon titles and eight grand slam events in all.

In NASCAR racing this weekend, Jeff Gordon spun out leader Matt Kenseth with four laps to go, and went on to win Sunday's USG Sheetrock 400. The two had tangled in a March 26 race at the Bristol Motor Speedway, in which Gordon shoved him afterwards. After this latest event, expect even more confrontations between these two.

In MLB play over the weekend, the Red Sox took two out of three games against the White Sox. Boston could have swept the series, but closer Jonathan Papelbon gave up a game tying home run to Jermaine Dye in the 9th inning. The game went all the way to the 19th inning before Chicago finally pulled out a 6-5 win.

Finally, in PGA Golf, South African Trevor Immelman birdied the 18th hole and finished at 13 under to win the Western Open. That was two strokes better than Tiger Woods and Matthew Goggin. It was Immelman’s first PGA Tour victory.

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