frbleus1-8, Exercise 2: "Zidane's headbutt cost France the 2006 World Cup"

Model answer (check the details), using the six questions:

1. Who says it? Fans, columnists and some players, often in the heat of the moment; others defend Zidane.
2. What exactly is claimed? That the sending-off caused the defeat. "Cost" suggests the result would otherwise have been different, which is a counterfactual.
3. What would count as evidence? The match at the time of the red card (the score was 1-1 and France was playing extra time), how France played with ten men for the last minutes, and the penalty shoot-out, in which Zidane would have been a penalty-taker.
4. Compared with what? Other matches in which a team lost a key player in extra time, and Zidane's penalty record.
5. Which period? The match itself, and the 10 minutes or so that remained when he left.
6. What would change my mind? Evidence that France was already losing control of the game before the red card, or that the shoot-out depended on luck.

Verdict: the red card removed France's best player and a likely penalty-taker, so it probably hurt the team's chances. But the match was level, the shoot-out was close (5-3) and the result cannot be proved to have been caused by the sending-off alone. A careful sentence: "The sending-off weakened France in the last minutes and removed a penalty-taker, but the result was decided on penalties."

Care: do not treat a counterfactual as a fact.