Outcome
It was the first final since 1978 in which neither Germany nor Brazil competed (and the second since 1938); it was also the first all-European final since Italy won the 1982 FIFA World Cup, and the second final to be decided on penalties (1994 was the first, with Italy losing on that occasion). It was also Italy's first world title in 24 years, and their fourth overall, putting them one ahead of Germany/West Germany and only one behind Brazil. The penalty shootout victory for Italy was that country's first in the World Cup Finals: Italy's three previous penalty shootout competitions (including the 1994 final) had all been lost. The victory also led to Italy topping the FIFA World Rankings in February 2007 for the first time since November 1993.
Read more about this topic: Fi FA World Cup Final 2006
Famous quotes containing the word outcome:
“It is always the moralists who do the most harm. Abortion is the logical outcome of civilization, only the jungle gives birth and moulders away as nature decrees. Man plans.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“These are days ... when a great cloud of trouble hangs and broods over the greater part of the world.... Then all about them, all about us, sits the silent, waiting tribunal which is going to utter the ultimate judgment upon this struggle.... No man is wise enough to produce judgment, but we call hold our spirits in readiness to accept the truth when it dawns on us and is revealed to us in the outcome of this titanic struggle.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)