But Zidane's red card in the final was the 28th in the 64-game competition. A record four came in the second round game between Portugal and the Netherlands, and three players were sent off only 47 minutes into the Italy-U.S. game.

The World Cup moves to South Africa in 2010 and, amid fears of massive transportation problems, soccer faces a major challenge to turn around its battered image.

The problems go beyond the games to the sport's world governing body, FIFA. One of the executive committee members, Ismail Bhamjee of Botswana, was sent home in disgrace for selling a dozen tickets for England's match against Trinidad and Tobago on June 15 for three times the face value.

FIFA itself makes lots of money, especially from TV rights, and points to how the game is becoming better organized in countries that once had no hope of playing in the World Cup.

But there remain overriding issues of greedy players and club owners, negative coaches and inconsistent referees.

That makes Zidane's head-butting all the worse. He had the chance to write the perfect ending to a brilliant career. Instead, he didn't even leave on his own terms, thrown out for behavior as shocking for who did it as what he did.