Berlin, 9 July 2006: while the ball drew nearly every lens in the Olympiastadion, one photographer stayed with the confrontation away from it. That split-second decision left John MacDougall with one of only two photographs of Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final.
The image, and the extraordinary circumstances behind it, are revisited in the documentary 9 July 2006. MacDougall, then working in Berlin for AFP, recalls how an assignment that began badly placed him in the unlikely position to capture football history.
Quick facts
- Zidane headbutted Italy defender Marco Materazzi during extra time of the 2006 World Cup final.
- Only two photographs of the incident are known to exist.
- MacDougall’s image was the other key capture alongside one taken by Dutch photographer Pete Schols.
- There were 250 photographers at pitch level and another 50 in the stands.
- MacDougall had been assigned a high position in the stands after arriving late for the media briefing.
MacDougall had been photographing supporters outside the stadium and missed the briefing. He was subsequently sent high into the stands, with a simple instruction: cover everything, but do not follow the ball.
That instruction proved decisive in extra time. He noticed Materazzi marking Zidane and saw the pair exchange words. MacDougall zoomed in on the Italian defender and stayed there, unsure why, before Zidane moved back into frame.
“Suddenly, he headbutted him,” MacDougall recalled. The action was so unexpected that he said he pressed the shutter in a reflex lasting barely a quarter of a second, initially convinced he had missed the decisive frame.
He turned to colleagues and asked whether they had seen what had happened. They had not: their cameras were tracking the ball, as most of the photographers inside the stadium had been doing.
MacDougall said he did not immediately grasp the scale the photograph would take on. Its power, in his view, lies in Zidane’s raised fist and Materazzi’s expression of pain at the instant of impact.
Yet the photographer still judges the frame with professional frustration. The moment remains immense, he said, but he considers the picture technically imperfect because Zidane’s legs were cut off in the composition.
