2006 FIFA World Cup

• 1. Introduction

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  The 2006 FIFA World Cup opened on the 9th of June with a goal after just five minutes. Germany's left-back Philipp Lahm struck first against Costa Rica, and what followed was the highest-scoring opening match in World Cup history, a 4-2 victory that set the tone for a tournament full of drama. Held across twelve German cities from the 9th of June to the 9th of July, this was the 18th edition of the competition, and it drew an estimated 26.29 billion viewings across the entire tournament. The final alone attracted an audience of 715.1 million people.

  But the story of how Germany came to host the tournament at all was tangled up in accusations of bribery, slush funds, and diplomatic manoeuvring. And the story of what happened on the pitch raised questions that still echo: could Italy hold off the brilliance of Zinedine Zidane? What would become of the six nations making their World Cup debut? And what caused one of the greatest players in football history to end his final match in the most dramatic possible way, in extra time of the final itself?

• 2. A Contested Bid

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  The vote to choose Germany as host was held on the 6th and the 7th of July 2000 in Zürich, with four nations bidding after Brazil had withdrawn three days before: Germany, South Africa, England and Morocco. Germany won the final round with 12 votes to South Africa's 11, but the result came surrounded by controversy from the very first day.

  On the night before the vote, German satirical magazine Titanic sent letters to FIFA representatives offering joke gifts including cuckoo clocks and Black Forest ham in exchange for their vote. The satirical intent was clear, but the stunt added to an atmosphere already charged with suspicion. Oceania delegate Charlie Dempsey, who had been instructed to support South Africa after England's elimination, abstained instead, citing what he called "intolerable pressure". Had Dempsey voted as instructed, the result would have been a 12-12 tie, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who backed South Africa, would have cast the deciding vote.

  The irregularities deepened. In the months before the vote, German politicians and major businesses developed a sudden interest in the four Asian countries whose delegates were considered decisive. The German government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder lifted an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia just one week before the vote. DaimlerChrysler invested several hundred million euros in Hyundai, whose founder's son sat on FIFA's executive committee. Volkswagen and Bayer announced investments in Thailand and South Korea, the countries of delegates Worawi Makudi and Chung Mong-joon respectively. Makudi additionally received a payment from a company linked to German media mogul Leo Kirch, who also paid millions for TV rights to friendly matches of the German national team and FC Bayern Munich.

  On the 16th of October 2015, German news magazine Der Spiegel alleged that a slush fund totalling 6.7 million euros, drawing on money from then-Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus, was used to influence four Asian members of FIFA's executive committee. DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach denied the allegations two days later, insisting the World Cup was not bought. On the 23rd of October, former DFB president Theo Zwanziger publicly called Niersbach a liar and stated that a slush fund for the German bid clearly existed. By the 22nd of March 2016, FIFA's Ethics Committee had opened formal proceedings into the bid.

• 3. New Nations, Old Rules

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  A total of 198 teams entered qualification for the 2006 finals, the process beginning in September 2003. For the first time since 1934, the defending champions were not granted automatic entry, meaning Brazil had to qualify alongside everyone else. Eight nations reached the finals for the first time: Angola, Czech Republic, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, and Serbia and Montenegro.

  The case of Serbia and Montenegro carried unusual political weight. The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro dissolved on the 3rd of June 2006, just days before the tournament began, after Montenegro voted in a referendum to become an independent nation. FIFA kept the team together under their original name, marking the first time in a World Cup final that multiple sovereign nations competed as a single team. Their involvement recalled the Commonwealth of Independent States squad that had represented the dissolved Soviet Union at UEFA Euro 1992.

  Australia qualified for the finals for the first time since 1974. The highest-ranked team to miss out was Denmark, ranked 11th at the time, while Togo, ranked 61st, became the lowest-ranked team to qualify. For the first time since the 1982 World Cup, all six populated continental confederations had at least one representative in the finals.

• 4. Germany as Host

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  Twelve stadia were selected across Germany, from Berlin's Olympiastadion with a capacity of 72,000 down to the easyCredit-Stadion in Nuremberg with 41,000 seats. Leipzig, in the former East Germany, was included as a host city, making this the first World Cup to incorporate a venue from that part of the country. The tournament was also the first World Cup to be filmed entirely in high definition.

  FIFA's sponsorship rules meant the Allianz Arena in Munich was referred to during the competition as FIFA World Cup Stadium, Munich, with the letters of the company Allianz removed or covered. The same renaming applied across multiple venues whose naming rights sponsors were not official FIFA partners.

  Off the pitch, Germany organised Fan Fests across the 12 host cities. The Berlin event was set up along the Straße des 17. Juni, between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, with 14 consecutive video walls. That site alone attracted 9 million fans over the course of the tournament, with nearly one million supporters present for each German match. The total Fan Fest attendance across Germany reached 21 million visitors, according to the German National Tourist Board. The Berlin Fan Fest became, at that time, the highest-attended event in German history, exceeding Oktoberfest.

  For the closing ceremony, composer Matthias Keller created a work performed simultaneously by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, conducted respectively by Christian Thielemann, Zubin Mehta and Mariss Jansons, with soloists Diana Damrau, Plácido Domingo and Lang Lang. FIFA president Sepp Blatter afterwards described it as the best-organised tournament in the competition's history. A study by the University of Marburg found a slight rise in national pride among the German population, and 96% of Germans surveyed by the European Tourism Institute considered their country to have been a good host.

• 5. Cards, Controversy and Record Books

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  Russian referee Valentin Ivanov handed out 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards in a single round of 16 match between Portugal and the Netherlands. That game, played in Nuremberg, set a new record for cards in one match and became known simply as the Battle of Nuremberg. Across the entire tournament, players received a record 345 yellow cards and 28 red cards, surpassing the previous record set at the 1998 World Cup.

  English referee Graham Poll managed an error of a different kind. In the group stage match between Croatia and Australia, he showed three yellow cards to Croatian player Josip Simunić before finally sending him off, an oversight that became one of the most discussed officiating mistakes in World Cup history.

  The knock-out phase produced far fewer goals than the group stages. Portugal's journey illustrated the drought starkly: they only scored in the 23rd minute of their round of 16 match and did not find the net again until the 88th minute of the third-place play-off. No player scored a hat-trick in the tournament, which the source identifies as the only time this has occurred in the competition's history. Germany led all teams with 14 goals in the knockout rounds alone, with players from all three outfield positions contributing.

  Miroslav Klose won the Golden Boot with five goals, the lowest total to claim that prize since 1962. In total, 147 goals were scored by 110 players across the tournament, with four of those credited as own goals. Andrea Pirlo of Italy won the most Man of the Match awards with three, while Germany's Lukas Podolski won the Best Young Player prize.

• 6. The Final and Its Aftermath

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  Zinedine Zidane opened the scoring in the final with a seventh-minute penalty that glanced off the underside of the crossbar, bounced beyond the goal line, then spun back and came out of the goal. Marco Materazzi equalised in the 19th minute after an Andrea Pirlo corner, heading in what would become the last conventional goal of the match and the last goal of the entire 2006 World Cup.

  Both sides had chances in normal time. Luca Toni struck the crossbar for Italy in the 35th minute, and France were not awarded a penalty in the 53rd minute when Florent Malouda went down under a challenge from Gianluca Zambrotta. Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon made a potentially decisive save in extra time, tipping a Zidane header over the bar.

  Then, near the end of extra time, Zidane head-butted Materazzi in the chest in an off-the-ball incident and was sent off. It was the French captain's final act in professional football. The penalty shootout ended 5-3 to Italy. David Trezeguet, who had scored the golden goal against Italy in the Euro 2000 final, was the only player not to score; his spot kick struck the crossbar, landed on the goal line, and went out.

  Italy's fourth World Cup title was their first in 24 years and made them the second most successful nation in the competition's history. The victory lifted Italy to the top of the FIFA World Rankings in February 2007, their first time at number one since November 1993. Germany's Jürgen Klinsmann, who had led the hosts to third place, announced after the tournament that he would not renew his contract, citing burnout. The German Football Association named his assistant Joachim Löw as successor the same day.