Win or lose, final thoughts stick with stars
Schweinsteiger recalls the 2014 high, Sagnol the heartbreak of 2006
Germany were three minutes from winning their first World Cup in a generation and Bastian Schweinsteiger couldn’t see.
“I had tears in my eyes,” the German captain said as he recalled the closing seconds of his team’s 1-0 win over Argentina four years ago in Brazil. “I couldn’t believe I was so close. It was kind of a feeling of, ‘Finally you will have it.’”
Willy Sagnol has different memories of his only World Cup final. “I was quite angry for some weeks,” he says of France’s penalty-kick loss to Italy in 2006.
“The World Cup final. The dream of a football player’s life,” he continues. “And I was so close to having it.” The disappointment, he concedes, remains “somewhere deep inside me.”
Though their World Cup adventures ended differently, the experiences of Schweinsteiger and Sagnol have earned both men membership in an elite club. Fewer than 400 people still alive know what it feels like to play in a World Cup final, a number that will swell slightly following this summer’s tournament in Russia.
But unless you’ve been there, there’s no way to understand the high that comes from winning a final… or the disappointment and despair that comes with losing.
Key performer
“From the first day to the last day of the World Cup, you live in a kind of a bubble,” Sagnol said. “You know you are playing in a World Cup. You know you are playing against Brazil or Italy or whoever. But you don’t really feel that pressure.
“You know it’s something important but you don’t think about it. Maybe it’s better not to think about it.”
Sagnol was on the World Cup team in 2002 but didn’t play as France were bounced, winless, in three games. Four years later, in Germany, however, he was a key performer, starting all seven games at right back for a team who conceded just two goals and reached the final unbeaten.
France’s final opponent, Italy, had been more stingy, allowing just one goal in group play — in a 1-1 draw with the US — before shutting out all three opponents in the knockout rounds. The final, it appeared, would be decided by which team made the more costly mistake, and that proved to be France — or more precisely French captain Zinedine Zidane.
He was sent off with 10 minutes left in extra time of a 1-1 game for headbutting Italy’s Marco Materazzi. “He left us alone on the pitch at the worst time. The World Cup final. The dream of every football player’s life,” Sagnol says.
Schweinsteiger’s Germany rolled into its final four years ago in more impressive fashion, routing host Brazil 7-1 in the most one-sided semi-final in tournament history. Next came Lionel Messi and unbeaten Argentina, whose flair and creativity stood in stark contrast to Germany’s implacable dominance.
“I played professional football since 2002 and I only played once in a World Cup final,” Schweinsteiger, 33, now retired from international football and playing in MLS for the Chicago Fire, said.
The World Cup final. The dream of a football player’s life. And I was so close to having it.” Willy Sagnol » French footballer