Elizondo praises 'guardian angel'
Afp, Buenos Aires
World Cup final referee Horacio Elizondo on Friday described his fourth official at the centre of the Zinedine Zidane head-butt affair as his 'guardian angel'. Elizondo repeated that he did not see the butt which felled Marco Materazzi in extra-time of the final between Italy and France in Berlin on Sunday. "The fourth official was my guardian angel," the Argentinian said of Spain's Luis Medina Cantalejo. "The incident took place a long way from where I was. When I saw Materazzi on the ground, I stopped play and I knew that something serious had happened," he told the Clarin newspaper. Elizondo immediately consulted linesman Dario Garcia. "I asked Garcia if he saw something and he said 'no'." It was then that the fourth official intervened.
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