In the most dramatic of finales, however, Australia were able to strike the final, telling blow to extend the run that has seen them go unbeaten against England in World Cup matches since 1993.
French, who himself only missed one target in the final, told BBC Sport: "Ninety-nine times out of 100 you will win with a 29 but I could not have asked for much more".
"We got the news right after regular Sunday service," Robert Acosta, assistant to the senior pastor at Iglesia de Cristo Ministerior Llamada Final, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.
"Put the fours up!" Shaquille O'Neal, the most valuable player of the finals, told a throng outside Staples Center, holding up four fingers on each hand.
Mills, who played for Leeds in the 2001 Champions League semi-finals, told BBC Radio 5 live: "Do Arsenal have the right mentality, the game-management and the character?
Clijsters, who has twice reached the semi-finals, told BBC Sport: "I heard her coughing a lot and after long rallies it took her a long time to recover.
The Swede, who guided England to the 2002 and 2006 World Cup quarter-finals, told BBC Sport: "It's not an impossible job - you have to have a little bit of luck, of course, when you are in the big tournaments.
Romania legend Gheorghe Hagi, who played 125 times for his county and starred at three World Cup finals, told BBC Sport: "It is very popular and a very important game.
Have I arrived at some final telling moment in my research on outsourcing intimate parts of our lives, or at the absurdist edge of the market frontier?
CARDIFF, WALES — Maybe Jonathan Sexton will fulfill the faith of the ecstatic Irishman who spent much of the second half of the Heineken European Cup final telling everybody within earshot that Sexton would be "the greatest player you ever saw".
