Berlin, 9 July 2006. The World Cup Final between France and Italy was 1-1 and deep into extra time.
Zinedine Zidane, widely seen as the greatest French player of all time, was playing the last match of his career. He had already scored in the final, a panenka penalty. Now he was walking away from Marco Materazzi.
Materazzi grabbed his shirt and said something. Zidane stopped. He turned, walked back and drove his head into Materazzi's chest.
The Argentine referee Horacio Elizondo sent him off after consulting his fourth official, Luis Medina Cantalejo. Zidane walked off the pitch, past the World Cup trophy on its plinth, and into retirement. France lost the shootout.
What did Materazzi say to Zidane?
Nobody outside the two men knows for certain. Materazzi reportedly insulted Zidane's mother and sister, but the exact trigger is still debated today. Whatever the words were, they cost France their best player at the most important moment of the tournament.
How the final ended
Italy won the penalty shootout 5-3 and lifted their fourth World Cup in the Olympiastadion. Zidane was already gone.
Why the headbutt is number 2
Because of the setting. It is one thing to lose your temper in a group game. It is another to do it in a World Cup Final, in the last match of a great career, after scoring a panenka earlier the same evening. The greatest French player of his generation walked off in disgrace, past the trophy he could have lifted.
The image of Zidane heading down the tunnel, with the World Cup a few metres away, is still one of the most astonishing in the game. Brilliance and self-destruction, a few minutes apart, in one man.
Tomorrow: the number 1 World Cup moment of all time.
