Recall that Zidane, who opened the scoring in the decisive match of the world championship, failed to finish the game. Ten minutes before the final whistle, he headbutted Italy defender Marco Materazzi, for which he received a red card. FIFA disqualified him for this offense for three matches, but replaced the punishment with three days of work with young footballers.
Besides Zidane, his France teammates Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Franck Ribery, and Lilian Thuram are also contenders for the 'Diamond' Ball. According to Lenta.ru, the list of thirty best also includes Brazilian Ronaldinho, who won this poll in 2004 and 2005, and Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko, the 2004 European Footballer of the Year.
Full list of candidates for the 2005 World Footballer of the Year: Adriano (Brazil), Michael Ballack (Germany), Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Petr Cech (Czech Republic), Deco (Portugal), Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast), Michael Essien (Ghana), Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon), Luis Figo (Portugal), Gennaro Gattuso (Italy), Steven Gerrard (England), Thierry Henry (France), Kaka (Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Frank Lampard (England), Jens Lehmann (Germany), Alessandro Nesta (Italy), Andrea Pirlo (Italy), Franck Ribery (France), Juan Roman Riquelme (Argentina), Ronaldinho (Brazil), Wayne Rooney (England), Tomas Rosicky (Czech Republic), Andriy Shevchenko (Ukraine), Lilian Thuram (France), Patrick Vieira (France), Zinedine Zidane (France).