Close your eyes and picture your favourite Zinedine Zidane. There’s a lot to choose from. Is it France ‘98 Zizou, a v-neck collared genius carrying the hopes of a fractured nation on his shoulders? Maybe it’s Bordeaux Zizou, all brooding intensity and untapped potential? Or perhaps it’s Galactico Zizou, a man capable of stopping time itself on the biggest footballing stage of all? You are about to meet all of these incarnations of Zidane—and plenty more—below. This is his career in 10 defining games, told by MUNDIAL and a couple of our friends.
MATCH 01:
CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE
REAL MADRID 3–1 DEPORTIVO DE LA CORUÑA DATE: JANUARY 5, 2002
At 8.27pm Madrid time on January 5 2002, Real Madrid walk out of the tunnel at Santiago Bernabéu and take their places to face Deportivo de La Coruña. It’s a clash between the two best teams in the league. In blue and white stripes, the second incarnation of Súper Dépor. A side who consistently bushwhack all comers at the Estadio Riazor and have spent the last half-decade zigzagging Iberia and Europe bloodying noses and stealing hearts. Dutch striker Roy Makaay starts, as does the midfield schemer Juan Carlos Valerón. On the bench wait bruising forwards Diego Tristán and Walter Pandiani, size 12s polished, and billy clubs at the ready in case the doors need kicking in and heads need cracking.
And you know which Madrid team this is, right? Yes, it’s phase one Galácticos, that all-white sponsorless strip with the military typeface, an adidas EQT logo, and a badge. Roberto Carlos bursting out of his shorts at left back, Fernando Hierro adjusting his captain’s armband and giving it some Clint Eastwoods. Figo is there, rolling his neck. Makélélé is preparing to put on a clinic of effortless economy and prescient passing, and up front are Raúl and Morientes, the dovetail joint of strike partnerships. A couple of wide-eyed Manga characters in knee-high socks.
And, of course, on the left, Zinedine Zidane. And not just any old Zidane, as if there was such a thing, but a Zidane whose crown has worn so heavy it has slipped off and taken most of his hair with it. The Zizou who waits for proceedings to start might be the most expensive player on the planet, but he is not considered the best. Far from it. He’s just finished in a lowly ninth place in the Ballon d’Or, 162 points away from Michael Owen and lagging behind Totti and Rivaldo. If you discount the Supercopa back in August, he’s not won a club trophy of note since the 1998 Serie A title, and people are queuing up in Spain to crow that the €77 million that Real Madrid paid last summer was a waste. To compound things, Madrid have been very good in the Champions League group stages when he’s been suspended and pretty average in the league when he hasn’t. They will tell you on the radio and in the bars through bursts of static and cigar smoke that he wears the number 5 for Los Blancos because he only plays half as well in it as he does wearing 10 for France. Excitable clean-cut shock jocks with a head full of Brylcreem and turnip-faced old men with moustaches and dirty fingernails collectively howling at the moon.
And this is Zidane’s predicament. Real Madrid is not an easy club to sign for; in fact, it is perhaps the most difficult environment in all of sport to thrive as a world record signing. A microscope held against the sun to examine and inflame every movement, a periscope required to navigate the day-to-day without going mad. It’s the royal moniker, the sceptre of Franco, the hankies, the European Cups, Alfredo and Ferenc, the endless incendiary debate. Judge, jury and executioner for breakfast, dinner and tea. It’s Real Madrid, for good and bad, right or wrong, a club unlike any other.
And he has not been brought in to focus solely on scoring goals, stopping them, or even simply creating them; he has been purchased for several kings' ransoms to unite all of it. To knit together the buccaneering Brazilian and the darting Portuguese, to move in the half spaces created by Raúl and Morientes’ synchronised movements, to become both composer and conductor, working endlessly on syncing the ensemble until they can fully express the symphony in his head while also delivering enough booming stanzas to keep the audience from torching their programmes in the meantime.
• • •
8.39pm, January 5 2002, and the Bernabéu is broiling as the first home game of the new year delivers on its promise. This is a real post-Christmas crowd. 75,000 or more, the succulent Cochinillo Asado and rivers of Cava and family traditions a distant memory in the dark early days of the worst month. Everyone is back at work. Football is a serious business. Madrid are the reigning champions, their opponents the runners-up. The upstarts from Galicia, who call themselves The Herculeans, in town for what is already being called a title decider. Nine minutes in, and it is one apiece. It has been frenetic, more so than Spanish football is ever given credit for. Morientes with an opener after five minutes. Makaay replying with a typically thrashed penalty after eight. Two of the modern era's most underrated and unheralded strikers delivering el primer plato.
The love affair between the quiet, intelligent Zidane and the boisterous and benighted Real Madrid is one of sporting history’s most enduring relationships. Yet as he runs parallel to the marauding Luís Figo less than 60 seconds after Makaay’s equaliser, this was just another of a million hopeful moves that have happened on that grass. Figo plays a one-two with Raúl, and the Dépor defence is sucked towards him as he collects it 30 yards out. He rolls it across to Zizou who is on the edge of the box and about to do something so beautiful, so precise, so full of technical ability and impudence and total mastery of his craft that you could watch it on repeat endlessly and never fail to be surprised about the choices he makes and the result of those choices.
He takes the first touch to a ball played across him with the outside of his right foot rather than the logical percentage choice of his left. There is no good reason to take it like that, apart from to start the con. To set the defender up so he is unbalanced of body and bewildered of mind from the get go. It’s a slight touch, but the right-back has already gone to cover his left. Our man cuts back across with his left foot so quickly the poor bastard is now facing the corner flag and looking over his shoulder at the ball, and as he starts to turn, the studs on the right boot of Zizou’s Predator Mania roll across the top of the ball and back across him. He is screwed. Spun like a top. Wrung out like a towel after a summer dip in Piscina El Lago. A husk of a man.
And now, we go. Boom. A push into space with his left to accelerate, it’s going away from goal, but that means nothing. He is into his gallop now; the dethroned King turned conductor lifting the orchestra and for a moment forgetting himself and launching into the wall of sound. Everyone can see it, everyone can hear what is in his head. The audience are up out of their seats, confetti in the air as his left foot sends the ball screaming into the back of the net and he runs towards them bellowing into the night.
The whole thing takes around six seconds but is the result of a lifetime of practice. Of 20-a-side games in La Castellane, of grafting away in the academies, of cherishing the ball above everything else. Of blocking out the noise, audible and imagined, of an inner belief that never wavered. The rest of the game, the season, was the Zidane show. All the flicks that had faltered and passes that had perished in previous games now found their targets. Roberto Carlos bursting onto backheels, Figo whipping crosses in from a perfectly angled pass, Raúl and Morientes feasting on slide rule through balls.
The next morning, Marca printed a front page with a huge Z slashed into the front cover in homage to The Legend of Zorro. Never again was his fee questioned, his ability doubted, or his shirt number used as a source of derision by the radio callers and barflies. Until he retired four years later, he remained centre stage, controlling, cajoling, and thrilling. Five touches, six seconds, one Galáctico to rule them all. ➊
MATCH 02:
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
SPAIN 1–2 FRANCE DATE: JUNE 25, 2000
A bright slick of midsummer sun streams diagonally across the Jan Breydel Stadium and makes the faces in the crowd glow. Spaniards with red and yellow flat caps are jumping around. Groups of France fans wave billowing tricolours and wear plastic cockerel heads over their French heads. Pierluigi Collina ducks his head under the doorframe that leads to the tunnel and strides out. Second from last to emerge are two men about to spend ninety minutes testing each other’s place in the food chain. Zinedine Zidane wears 10; Pep Guardiola wears 4. They walk out onto the pitch.
A La Masia scholar since he was 13, Pep has been the fulcrum of a Barcelona midfield shifting through the ages. A European Cup, six La Liga, controller of Cruyff’s Dream Team, captain of Van Gaal’s, a footballer that Xavi, Fabregas, and Pirlo have spoken about as writing the blueprint. Pep hasn’t played against Zidane before. Zizou’s eyes are alert.
In the wild, chameleons can move their eyes independently of each other, observing an approaching object while simultaneously scanning the rest of their environment. Monocular vision, where both eyes are used to look at separate things at once, is common in prey animals. Imagine being able to see two different things in different places happening at the same time.
There are 72 seconds gone when Zinedine Zidane uses his monocular vision to disappear from Pep Guardiola’s sight for the first time. A throw-in from the right-hand side in the Spain half, Zizou lets the ball bounce once across his body, kisses it with his right knee, moves left, and now there are three Spanish players after him, including Pep. He makes a dash for it. Breaks free into safe land. Puts in a cross. In this nature documentary, the predator’s first attempt has failed. Dinner cancelled. Hans Zimmer’s strings have just got going.
Second from last to emerge are two men about to spend ninety minutes testing each other’s place in the food chain
For the next 91.5 minutes, Pep will always be close to what was marked as his prey, but he will never, ever be close enough. Zimmer’s opening strings will turn full symphony; the slo-mos will go hypersonic. Zizou will become the apex predator. He will knock the ball over Pep and collect it on the outside of his boot, and Pep will not be close enough. He will emerge with the ball from crowded Spaniards, stride into space, and Pep will not be fast enough. He will swing a free kick into the top corner of the net from 25 yards out, and Pep and his wall will not jump high enough. He drags the ball around Pep in the middle of the pitch, gets crosses past him down the wings, and dribbles past him on the edge of the France box.
It is a performance so overwhelming that Pep brought it up in a press conference 20 years later after Manchester City played Zidane’s Real Madrid. Unprompted, Pep looked at a room full of journalists and said, “I played against him in the national team with France, and I suffered a lot.”
Four years after his first major tournament and six before his last, this was Zizou taking international football and turning it into a kickabout on top of Mount Olympus. One eye on Pep, another on the surrounding environment, the whole world looking up and waiting to see what’s next… ➋
MATCH 03:
GONE IN 60 SECONDS
FRANCE 2–1 PORTUGAL (AET) DATE: JUNE 28, 2000
The best genre of film is the heist movie. Ensemble casts, crackling dialogue, careers getting gloriously resurrected or going out with a bang. Full of tragedy, jeopardy, devils pulling tricks and convincing the world they didn’t exist. Yes, heist movies, whether set in the Old West, deep space or Tarantino’s head, are the best movie genre. Why does this matter? Because if Euro 2000 is the most cinematic tournament of our lifetime, which it clearly is, then the semifinal between France and Portugal is the ultimate heist flick of a game.
Just look at the cast. Barthez, the zany electronics guy who keeps going BANG whenever he cuts a wire. Abel Xavier, a seriously depressed fence. Anelka and Henry are the pair of chalk and cheese cousins who have got in on the job because Laurent Blanc used to smuggle cigarettes with their uncle and spent five years in La Santé prison with his mate Marcel Desailly who knows a guy who knows a guy and that guy is Fernando Couto and his bone-chilling glare. Deschamps is a copper, Vieira and Petit are muscle, and Rui Costa is the livewire safecracker who gets whacked early. Ever seen the referee, old Günter Benkö? Looks like Brick Top, and yes, he does know what nemesis means.
And Zizou? Well, he’s three days on from turning Pep into Charlie Chaplin and four away from being crowned Player of the Tournament. A three-performance run in a year that he considers his best as a footballer. He is the main man. Swaggering Danny Ocean in Predator Accelerator, the Keyser Söze of kickabouts. Feared, elusive, and utterly ruthless. And he is about to pull off a masterpiece.
There are three versions of this particular heist. The full game, runtime 117 minutes, rated PG—a classic. 9.2 on IMDB. Then there is a three-minute cutdown. It’s good. Really good. Nuno Gomes and his smash and grab through a bank teller's window and the almighty ruckus at the end when the whole gang fall out and end up with lengthy sentences. 150 comments on YouTube, LuisFigo12 with 14 of them, all variations of puta merda.
It’s the 81-second version we’re watching, though. The security footage found dumped in a bin that nobody sees until it’s too late. There is a pass wrapped around his standing leg to confuse the guards, a long slalom dribble with three different types of stepover to shake off the dogs, a pirouette, a jump and a tiptoe walk to not trip the alarm. There’s an elbow in the ribs to show who is boss, a telescopic leg to flick out a pass when all seems lost. He’s moving so easily out of the shadows and into the light. He controls a ball on his chest, contorts his body, and he’s into the vault. Click, click, click, click, and the numbers on the safe fall into place.
The best film genre is the heist film, and whether they end with a shootout in front of a saloon, a bloodbath in a warehouse, or a Staffordshire Bull Terrier running around a campsite, they are always memorable. 117 minutes on the clock, audience on tenterhooks. Five nerveless steps, and the penalty is dispatched. Golden Goal. Safe emptied. Engine running. ➌
MATCH 04:
INCEPTION
BORDEAUX 3–0 AC MILAN (3-2 AGG.) DATE: MARCH 19, 1996
If you pore over the details of all the great careers with a magnifying glass, you can pinpoint a moment where the needle shifted violently, where things changed dramatically. The bottle uncorked, the genie flooding out, doubling and trebling in size until everybody is aware of its presence.
Zinedine Zidane was no ingénue on March 19, 1996. Twenty-four years old, the crown of his head now starkly visible from above, he’d been extensively scouted and had permanently ousted Eric Cantona as the French fulcrum. Yet neither was he a leading man. A wonderful player, yes; creative, lauded, brooding, but not seen by the club owners and bean counters as a man who could carry a big team on his shoulders.
And then AC Milan rolled into Bordeaux, leading 2–0 from the first leg of a UEFA Cup quarterfinal. The scale of the opposition, with that back four, his mate Marcel as the pivot and a pair of Ballon d’Or winners in Roberto Baggio and George Weah up top, and the jeopardy of the scoreline making it by far the biggest club game that Zizou had played.
“Like a trailer for the next ten years” is how Michael Gibbons described his performance in an earlier issue of MUNDIAL. And he’s right; it is the full Zidane. There are dragbacks and backheels, and there are balls cushioned in that style where he appears to be rolling the punches of a windmilling opponent. The balance and power are there. Ditto the clarity and precision. It’s his trademark scything dribble, inside and forwards from the left flank, which leads to Christophe Dugarry’s winner. It’s not just a trailer for the next ten years; it’s the sizzle reel you show to a studio when you want them to invest.
It’s the supercut that you piece together to generate excitement. Fast transitions, big and bold titles, a thundering track. The eyes and forearms of the moneymen bulging with dreams of awards and garlands, of lighting cigars and slapping backs and telling everybody they had played a part.
It’s the study of a man. 24. Feted but unfulfilled, choosing the biggest game of his club career to prove that he could run the show when it mattered most—in the white-hot heat and with the pressure bubbling. A quivering needle sent flying off the page as if an earthquake had struck. The genie high above the stadium now, the bottle smashed and the magnifying glass rendered useless as his magic doubles, trebles, and quadruples in size. ➍
MATCH 05:
CITY OF GOD
FRANCE 2–2 CZECH REPUBLIC DATE: AUGUST 17, 1994
When Aimé Jacquet took over from Gerard Houllier as the French manager in December 1993, the national team was in disarray. A crumbling Peugeot coupé zooming down the autoroute with all its parts flying off. That autumn, France had needed just a single point from their last two home games against Israel and Bulgaria to qualify for USA 94, and despite leading in both, lost both. Nil point. There goes the steering wheel, bonnet, and windows. It’s a write-off.
Jacquet had been Houllier’s right-hand man for two years and had his work cut out to nurture a side ripe to the point of combustion. What do you do with a king like Cantona? A prince in his prime like Ginola, still smarting from being labelled a criminal by Houllier? A nation that has had its fill and is looking towards the Five Nations for comfort?
Things started well. A win in a friendly against Arrigo Sacchi’s Italy: Cantona captain, Youri Djorkaeff on the scoresheet. Another win against Chile, then Australia, then Japan, and then came the Czech Republic in an August friendly in Bordeaux. The hum of the summer holidays. No domestic football. Kids watching from their grandparents’ sofas.
And watching from the subs bench with France two–nil down and about half an hour to go was the country’s Young Player of the Year. Full head of hair. Fourteen on his back. Pregnant wife in the crowd.
When Zidane was brought on for Corentin Martins in the 63rd minute, Marcel Desailly was watching from the bench. By the 84th, the Czechs were still 2–0 up…
“I am on the bench with five minutes to go, and I’m looking at the game completely disappointed. The pressure is on us: we are going to lose this match. I’m already preparing myself for the media afterwards, and then suddenly, I see Zidane getting the ball…"
Laurent Blanc plays a 30-yard pass along the floor to Zizou, who is in space to the right of the centre circle in the Czech half. He motions to suggest he’s moving towards the ball and then drops a shoulder to let the ball do the work instead. It’s liquid movement, and a Czech midfielder ends up splashing about in its remnants on the floor. Then he’s off. 40 yards out: a step over with his right foot, a shimmy to his left, that’s another gone. 35 yards out: a delicate touch with his right, a nudge with his left, another down. 34 yards out, 33 yards out, 32 yards out: he’s moving diagonally, calmly, beautifully, right towards the Czech goal. A bishop peacefully sedating pawns. Then, at 25 yards out, it’s time for the fireworks. His left foot, wrapped in a Copa Mundial with one loop of lace going around from the sole of the boot to the roof of it like a Sunday League stroller, rifles across the ball. The goalie is flailing. The top corner is bulging. Et voila. C’est moi.
BACK TO THE BENCH.
“Hope is coming back! Talent is here! It’s an unbelievable goal to score on your debut in front of your home crowd, and they are going crazy. And then, well, a few minutes later, we get a corner…"
The ball is whipped in by Jocelyn Angloma, and Zidane makes a run towards the near post. He’s still eight, nine yards out, with players around him and the goalie in position. There’s a lot of work to be done. He jumps to meet the ball. Body completely vertical. No arch to it at all. It’s imperious. Visceral. And the ball flies into the back of the net. That’s two goals in three minutes. On his international debut. He wanders back into France’s half nonplussed.
BACK TO MARCEL.
“Zidane is somebody very quiet, very humble. He knew he had done something great, but maybe he wasn’t ready to celebrate with us yet because he already knew how hard he was ready to work to become the Zidane that we all know now. For him, it was something normal to be able to make that sort of magic moment happen. I remember Cantona coming to him and telling him afterwards, "Oh, you are going to be a serious player", and he offered him the pennant that we exchanged with the opponent team.
“In the national team then, you could tell the vibe. We were young and surrounded by experienced players like Cantona, but there was the new generation, too, and Jacquet was helpful because he could be very strict but also very soft.
“At that time, Zidane was not yet the Zidane that we would all later discover. He was smallish and very slim. Skilful, obviously, and what he had more than anything then was his hips. His ability to stop the ball, control the ball, and then start again was amazing, and it came from his hips.
“It was a privilege to share the field with him during my career. Zidane had the ability of seeing the ball or his opponent or his teammate in slow motion. So he was having some sort of advantage on us, a lucidity that not many players had. I knew a lot of good players like van Basten, Dejan Savićević, Gianfranco Zola… but Zidane really was something special, even out of all the other players I played with. You could tell from the start that in the future, this is going to be one of our leaders.” ➎
MATCH 06:
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
AJAX 1–2 JUVENTUS DATE: APRIL 23, 1997
Following a disappointing Euro 96 for which Zidane was scapegoated, the reigning Ligue Un Player of the Year left Bordeaux and signed for Champions League holders Juventus. Serie A was still the best league in the world, and the 24-year-old Zidane joined a foreign legion including Ballon d’Or winner George Weah and machine-gunning goal monster Gabriel Batistuta. Things started badly for Zizou, with La Repubblica calling him a cross-country runner chucked into the middle of a pack of possessed sprinters. But, a change of position by his manager, the cigar-smoking leisurewear fanatic and future World Cup-winning coach, Marcelo Lippi, saw him pushed forwards into the Number 10 role during the autumn. Zizou had liftoff.
“Lippi was like a light switch for me,” Zidane later said. “He switched me on, and I understood what it meant to work for something that mattered. Before I arrived in Italy, football was a job, sure, but most of all, it was about enjoying myself. After I arrived in Turin, the desire to win things took over and never left me.”
In the stands at the Stadio delle Alpi, a fellow 24-year-old was looking to make a name for himself. Giovanni Battista Olivero, or GB as he’s known to his friends, us, and now you, was a Juve fan at the beginning of a career that saw him progress from writing for the local newspaper to Gazzetta dello Sport, which he still does today. Zizou is his hero. GB saw every home game he played for Juventus from the stands, interviewed him three times, and wrote a book about him.
We asked him to talk about Zidane’s defining game in black and white, but before he answered that, he gave us the context…
“When he arrived, fans weren’t convinced at all. But, after the very first training session, I remember Lippi immediately telling the media that the fans should be quiet because Zidane had already shown his qualities in that training session. And although things may have got off to a difficult start in terms of his performances, Lippi changed the team so that Zizou became the first point of the action. His incredible goal against Inter Milan in October and then the performance in the Intercontinental Cup finals against River Plate in Tokyo showed this. He became the focal point of the best Juventus team of the last 20 years.”
The game GB chose was Juventus v Ajax in April 1997. A spring night in Turin. A semifinal second leg. A rerun of the previous year’s final. Vieri, Deschamps, Bokšić, Overmars, de Boer, van der Sar. Juventus are 2–1 up from the first leg in Amsterdam, and Zidane, whose hair has rapidly gone from bouffant to balding, sets up Attilio Lombardo for the first goal, slinging a corner right onto his shining head.
“Stadio delle Alpi looked so empty in so many games at that time, it was big, too big, and the stands were too far from the pitch. But, on Champions League nights, there was always a zinging atmosphere.
'Zizou could play in the 80s with Zico, Platini, Maradona'
“The first assist is interesting in terms of Zidane’s progression at Juventus. It was often Del Piero who took the set pieces; he was an exceptional specialist. So, Zidane was second on the list. With Del Piero on the bench, Zizou whipped the corner into the front post, and Lombardo met it at the near. I remember this goal well because it was right underneath the stand where the Juventus Ultras stood. It’s the perfect corner.”
The flares are going, and Del Piero is chewing gum and smiling from the sideline. Vieri scores to make it 2–0, and then in the second half, Mario Melchiot scores from a header to put the nerves back on notice. But in the 74th minute, Zidane kicks into gear, wins the ball in his own half, collects it back, zooms forward, starts to almost tip-toe into the Ajax box, slips Daley Blind, and then runs the ball across to Amoruso to score.
“Zidane often seemed to prefer to make an assist rather than a goal. We came to expect this. He showed all of his qualities for this goal: his vision of the game, his dribbling, perfect passes. It was a display of talent and an exploration of his greatness. He was very good at playing well with his teammates, and this is the secret of Zidane. He made his teammates come to play. He made them better.
“He was a real leader in this match. The driver of the team. The player who conveyed confidence and serenity to everyone. Even in the few difficult moments Juve had during this game, Zinedine let himself be given the ball and managed it. He was in control of the game and the situation; Ajax could not stop him from leading the game.”
Two minutes later, Deschamps spots Zidane making a run through the middle of the park. The pass is immaculate; Zidane takes it into his stride, feints with such violence that van der Sar and Richard Witschge are pretzeled up on the floor and puts the ball into the back of the net.
“I remember this goal very well. Every fan in the stands made an “ooh”, “OOOOH!” with every step that he progressed with the ball. “Oooh, Ooooh!” An incredible sound to hear in a football stadium. A rare time. One of the most beautiful goals in the history of Juventus. It’s impossible to forget his performance in this game.
“Zidane could play in every age of football. He could play in the 80s with Zico, Platini, Maradona. In the 90s with Baggio. Or in the 2000s with Messi and Ronaldo. Zidane was a modern player. Whatever decade he played in, past, present or future, he would be modern to that era. He could make you emotional by the way that he played football.
“In his heart, there was not only his success but the success of the team. In Italy, there is nobody who speaks badly of Zidane. He is loved by everyone there—his teammates, players from other teams, fans, journalists. Everyone loves Zizou. He was a fighter and believed in victory to the end. After all, Juve's motto is just that: until the end.
“I spoke to Zidane on the plane ahead of the Real Madrid v Juventus Champions League semifinals in 2003. I remember on that flight that it wasn’t me making questions to him, but Zizou making questions to me. He still knew everything about Juventus and how the team was doing and wanted to know what I thought and how everyone was. It was very strange because I thought that I was interviewing Zidane, but it was Zidane that interviewed me. Zizou is not only a Madridista; he’s a Juventino too.” ➏
MATCH 07:
DAYS OF GLORY
BRAZIL 0–3 FRANCE DATE: JULY 12, 1998
'I was the best player in the world. It does not happen often, and to me only once. It's beautiful'
MATCH 08:
FIELD OF DREAMS
JUVENTUS v RIVER PLATE DATE: NOVEMBER 26, 1996
There are grave warnings about meeting your heroes. There has to be. Especially the heroes you’ve had since you were young. We build statues of them in our minds, talk to them on bedroom walls, and stand by them when everyone around you can see their faults. Whether it’s a shimmering pop star, an emblematic writer, or a revolutionary saying things others don’t, we immortalise our heroes in ways that can only be brought down by actually meeting them.
On the bedroom wall that Zinedine Zidane shared with his brother Djamel was a photo of a bushy-haired Uruguayan who looked like he could have wandered into The Cavern Club in the early 60s and changed the direction of music forever. Enzo Francescoli had been nicknamed El Príncipe (The Prince) as a teenager because of the grace with which he played the game. And after moving to River Plate, shining bright amongst other glittering number 10s like Diego, Platini, and Zico at the ‘86 World Cup, he headed to Bernard Tapie’s Marseille in ‘89. Zizou’s home.
“Enzo Francescoli was more than my idol,” Zidane recalled. “I was fanatical about him. It was more than mimicry. I dissected everything he did. I had to do that again on the field. I practised until I got there. I looked at everything with a magnifying glass to be able to reproduce what he could do.”
After Enzo moved to Marseille, Zidane would go and sit in the stands to watch him and the other attackers practising their control and finishing after training. It was love.
Seven years later, Zidane had graduated from Cannes to Bordeaux to Juventus, and Enzo had returned to Buenos Aires to play with the club where he’d made his name. In the golden light of his career, Enzo was leading River Plate to league titles, nurturing youngsters like Hernán Crespo and Ariel Ortega, and then in 1996, captained the club to a Copa Libertadores victory over Colombia’s América de Cali, with Crespo scoring two goals in the second leg to win the title.
This meant an Intercontinental Cup final in Tokyo against the winners of that year’s Champions League. And that year’s winners of the Champions League were Marcelo Lippi’s Juventus. River Plate v Juventus. Zinedine Yazid Zidane v Enzo Francescoli Uriarte.
Zidane and the man he worshipped, the player he’d studied and become infatuated with, the hero he had named his first son after just 20 months before, were to cross paths for the first time.
It was November 1996, and the National Stadium, a roofless oval bowl in Tokyo’s Shinjuku area, was packed out. 48,000 fans. Floodlights on. Running track gleaming. An actual beacon throwing up actual flames behind the scoreboard. An adidas Questra to play with. Refs in those pink adi shirts.
River are wearing one of the most iconic kits of all time: red sash, three stripes on both arms, posh collar, and Juventus are clad in the sensational Kappa bianconeri stripes, a special edition sponsorless chest, and match details printed on the arms. Ticker tape going, flags being waved, white and red River umbrellas twirling into the night sky. And on the pitch, Zinedine Zidane and Enzo Francescoli are playing in the number ten roles for opposite teams. Student and teacher mirrored across the grass.
It’s a dream that Zizou has written for himself. And in that dream are some big characters. Didier Deschamps in his pomp, a Gallic leader of an Italian battalion, the 1996 French player of the year. Alessandro Del Piero with thick hair, sideburns trimmed with the flourish and perfection of a drag queen’s eyebrows, Coppe Italia, Scudetti, Champions Leagues already firmly under his belt. And in red and white, there’s Ariel El Burrito Ortega, four Primera Division titles in the last five years, European clubs from across the continent after him and two years before head-butting a goalkeeper at France 98, there’s Juan Pablo Sorin, who only left Juventus a couple of months before after playing four games, there’s a pre-Inter Milan Julio Cruz galloping around the stables up front.
Immediately, Didier Deschamps sends in the artillery and sets the tone with a knee-high tackle on Ortega. Shortly afterwards, Celso Ayala returns the assault on Del Piero. They’re immediate red cards in 2022, and throughout the game, elbows are bent, tackles are high, and headers are followed through with grit and dirt and menace.
This might be a dream, but it is not a friendly.
Now stop for a second and think about how it would feel to be on the same pitch as the person you’ve immortalised. Jumping on stage with Wu-Tang Clan in Staten Island to perform “Bring Da Ruckus”, heading into the kitchen for a shift on the pass with your favourite chef, tasked with performing a comedic monologue to the cameras alongside Robin Williams. You’d forget the words. Chop a finger off. Lose the cameras.
Alessandro Del Piero with thick hair, sideburns trimmed with the flourish and perfection of a drag queen’s eyebrows
But Zidane plays beautifully. There are first-time, mid-air through balls with the outside of his boot in the middle of the pitch. Long-strided dribbles through the midfield with his legs catching up with the ball before it starts to slow down. Bursts into the box. Simple passes with exaggerated technique. Wipes his brow. Thinks about the poster on his bedroom wall. Grits his teeth. Goes again.
But Zidane is mortal. Even in the best dreams, little things go wrong. He scuffs a left-footed shot from 35 yards. Falls over trying to do a drag-back. Skews his balance, lost in the narrative, drops to the floor. Have you ever seen Zinedine Zidane fall over trying to do a drag-back before? He can do them with his eyes zipped up.
In the 81st minute, Zizou rises high into the floodlit night to flick the ball on for Del Piero to score the winner. But the result here isn’t really important. Nor is the yellow card he gets a couple of minutes later for hacking down Hernan Diaz on the counter-attack.
On the only time that Zidane will share a football pitch with Enzo, every sinew, vein, hair on his body is pushed to the max. It’s a kid trying to impress his older brother’s best mate who he’s always idolised. A son trying to show his dad what he can do. A footballer about to go stratospheric trying to tell his hero, “Watch me. I’ve watched you. Look at the things I can do. I haven’t even started yet. Please. Watch me.”
Juventus are crowned the best team in the world, and at the end of the game, Enzo and Zidane meet. Embrace. Swap shirts.
“I heard that he used to sleep in that shirt both in his Juve days and with France during the 1998 World Cup,” Enzo said years later during a FIFA documentary. In a world where there are grave warnings about meeting your heroes, Zidane met his, got the T-Shirt, and wore it to conquer the world. ➑
MATCH 09:
DON’T LOOK UP
BAYER LEVERKUSEN 1–2 REAL MADRID DATE: MAY 15, 2002
The world is relentless and monotonous, but the ball dropped so slowly and so quietly, and then everyone stopped. Zidane had already lost two Champions League finals—both with Juventus. Borussia Dortmund and Ajax permanently seared across his mind.
History is punctuated by events of collective experience, moments where groups of different people in different places paused together and thought about where they were in the universe, who they were with, what they were doing, how they’d got there. Total eclipses, the moon landing, JFK’s assassination: single moments so powerful and impactful that they stay on the back of your eyelids forever.
On that night in Hampden, Zinedine Zidane made everyone stop and remember where they were. The goal, a left-footed topspin volley in the 45th minute, was an eclipse. A moon landing. A goal that was voted Real Madrid’s greatest of all time won them their ninth European Cup and defined a man who consistently and viciously performed in the big games.
Here’s what the people who paused together thought as the ball hit the back of the net…
Santiago Solari—On the pitch
"It was a one-in-a-lifetime, a magical technical gesture. Zizou knew instantly it was a work of art, and he celebrated the goal in a way I hadn't seen him celebrate ever before.”
Rob Smyth—The Guardian
“In some respects, the best part is not the whirling volley but the furious concentration as the ball drops from the heavens. Zidane stares at the ball like a stalker before contorting his body into a grotesque and ugly position—but one that enabled him to produce a moment of unforgettable beauty.”
Virgile Orsott—Watching in the Ivory Coast
“I was 13 years old, watching that game on an old school box TV, surrounded by neighbourhood friends, at least 15 of us in the smallest living room ever. And somehow that goal is one of the happiest memories in my lifetime.”
Rob Hughes—The International Herald Tribune
“Take a look, Zidane, at the multitude of pictures of your goal. Look at your eyes, which never stray from the ball. Look at the distribution of your bodyweight. Look at the still-frame photographs that with any justice will be used in every coaching manual to every child who wants to aspire to sporting acclaim.”
Vicente del Bosque—In the technical area
"Pure aesthetics, something of a spectacular nature that is rarely seen in football and even less so in a final.”
Zinedine Zidane—Pausing time
“It was written.” ➒
MATCH 10:
CINEMA PARADISO
5-A-SIDE IN LA CASTELLANE GYMNASIUM DATE: 2001
In his 1962 novel Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin writes, “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” It’s a complex book that explores identity, masculinity and the concept of home. What is home? Is it where you live now? Where you grew up? Where your parents live?
The dusty orange hills of Aguemoune in northern Algeria were Ammi Smail Zidane’s home before he emigrated to Paris in 1953. Working long days in construction, home in Paris was often makeshift structures he’d put together on the sites where he was working.
Nineteen years later, Zinedine arrived, the last of five. Marseille was now home for Smail and his family, specifically La Castellane, an area of high-rise buildings initially built for refugees of the Algerian War of Independence. The square outside was where Zizou played until the shadows went long and sculpted the skills that took him far away from the estate.
Like so many underfunded areas of cities, La Castellane has its problems. Poverty, isolation, and lack of opportunity create pressure and desperation, and the area’s role in drug trafficking is infamous. In 2016, trials on lucrative drug rings heard stories of fully paid-up Balkan mercenaries fighting wars, an abundance of Kalashnikovs, and €50,000 a day being made on the estate. It’s a tough place to grow up. But at its heart, it’s also a home for the people living there and the kind of tough breeding ground that can produce world-class footballers from amongst its chaotic, sprawling kickabouts.
From Cannes to Bordeaux, Turin to Madrid, Zinedine Zidane has had many other places to call home, but there’s a reason he once said, “Every day I think about where I come from, and I am still proud to be who I am: first, a Kabyle from La Castellane, then an Algerian from Marseille, and then a Frenchman.”
La Castellane is his home.
And so, we head to his old school gymnasium twenty years after he left. Eight men, four with bibs on, basketball hoops on the sides of the pitch, court lines on the squeaking floor, and Zizou’s brother is holding the camera.
This is Zizou back on his old patch. Here, he goes by Yazid. Here, he has to show his friends he’s still got it. Here, punctuated by shouts from the pitch that we’ve translated for you, is the kind of game that defines you to the people you care about most…
00:01:
“Tout bon?”—“All good?”
Zidane is pairing baggy blue bottoms with an oversized black jacket that has a collar all the way up to his chin. It’s an absurd and fantastic outfit to play indoor football in—Jean-Paul Sartre in a tracksuit. He shakes hands with the opposition.
00:08:
“Ouah. Continue!”—“Wow. Go on!”
Bib on, this is his first touch. He takes it on his left, drags the ball to his right, then stands up square to the approaching defender, leans forward onto him, and pushes him firmly in the chest with both hands. The lad takes three steps back. Even on the squeaking floor of an old school gym, Zizou draws a buffer around him and the ball, a physical and almost visible border, a fairy ring to which nobody else has the password.
00:21:
“Il est par terre!”—“He’s on the floor!”
When football has been in every fibre of your childhood, your teens, your memories, your dreams, it’s difficult to separate the importance from one game to another. There’s an urge to win, sure, but it’s also an urge to play the game. To beat the game. Here, Zizou throws himself across the floor to get to a through ball and ends up in the back of the net, like it’s the last minute of the Champions League final and Juve are one–nil down to Real Madrid in 1998.
It’s a move you’ve seen him do on pitches across the world. A shoulder drops left, the body opens right. Smooth. He’s dancing now. He’s started to dance.
01:20:
“Cinq mille fois.”—“Five thousand times.”
A 270° turn blended with receiving the ball with his left foot runs a piece of rope around one player to leave him hostage. Next, there’s a stepover, and then Zizou glides past another before passing, instead of shooting himself, to his teammate for a tap-in. He’s not showing off; he’s showing his friends he can still do it here. That he still wants to do it here. Not just on the perfect turf of stadiums, under the gleaming lights, in front of the zooming cameras and the fans and the trophies and the awards. It’s Ronnie O’Sullivan crafting a 147 back in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Serena playing forehands down the line of that court in Compton Park. Babe Ruth breaking windows in Baltimore.
Here, Zidane is saying. It means as much to me here.
01:30+:
“T’as filmer? Oui!”—“Did you film? Yes!”
And then, the game comes to an end. Zizou is smiling. Satisfied. It’s the smile of someone who is home. ➓
