Zinedine Zidane

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Zinedine Zidane scored two goals in the 1998 World Cup Final, both headers, both from corners, in front of the entire world. France beat Brazil 3-0 that night at the Stade de France. More than one million people lined the Champs-Elysees afterward, celebrations centred around the Arc de Triomphe. A boy from a tough neighbourhood in northern Marseille had become a national hero.

  But Zidane's story is not simply one of triumph. Eight years later, in the final match of his career, he was sent off for headbutting an opponent in the chest. He won the Golden Ball as player of the tournament the very next day. Polls showed 61 percent of French people said they had already forgiven him. It was that kind of career. Brilliant, improbable, contradictory, and utterly impossible to look away from.

  How does a child from the housing projects of La Castellane become the FIFA World Player of the Year three times? What drove the occasional violence that shadowed a career defined by grace? And how does the same man who played the final match of his life in disgrace go on to become the only manager in history to win three consecutive UEFA Champions League finals? Those questions run through everything that follows.

• 2. La Castellane

  ›

  Zidane was born on the 23rd of June 1972 in La Castellane, a neighbourhood in the 16th arrondissement of Marseille. His parents, Smail and Malika, had immigrated to Paris from the village of Aguemoune in the Berber-speaking region of Kabylia in 1953, before the Algerian War began. The family eventually settled in the northern Marseille suburb of La Castellane in the mid-1960s after finding little work elsewhere.

  La Castellane was notorious throughout Marseille for high crime and unemployment rates. Zidane's father worked as a warehouseman and security guard at a department store, often on the night shift. His mother was a housewife. By the standards of the neighbourhood, the family lived reasonably comfortably. Zidane credits his strict upbringing and his father as the "guiding light" in his career.

  His earliest football came at age five, on the Place Tartane, an 80-by-12-yard plaza that served as the main square of the housing complex. He joined the junior team of local club US Saint-Henri at age ten, then moved to SO Septemes-les-Vallons when coach Robert Centenero convinced the club's director to recruit him. Zidane stayed at Septemes until he was 14. At a three-day training camp at the CREPS in Aix-en-Provence, he was spotted by AS Cannes scout Jean Varraud, who recommended him to the club.

  As a 14-year-old watching the 1986 World Cup, Zidane saw Diego Maradona perform and stated that Maradona "was on another level". The impression never left him. His three childhood idols, named in a July 2011 interview, were former Marseille players Blaz Sliskovic, Enzo Francescoli and Jean-Pierre Papin.

• 3. Temper and Talent

  ›

  Zidane went to Cannes for a six-week stay and ended up spending four years at the club. Cannes director Jean-Claude Elineau invited him to leave the dormitory he shared with 20 other trainees and live with his family instead. Zidane later said that, living with the Elineaus, he found equilibrium.

  His first coaches noticed immediately that he was raw and sensitive. He was prone to attack spectators who insulted his race or family. His first coach, Jean Varraud, encouraged him to channel his anger into his game. Zidane spent his first weeks at Cannes mainly on cleaning duty as punishment for punching an opponent who had mocked his background.

  He made his professional debut with Cannes on the 18th of May 1989 in a French Division 1 match against Nantes. His first goal for the club came on the 10th of February 1991, also against Nantes, in a 2-1 win. After the match, Cannes chairman Alain Pedretti gave him a car. Pedretti had promised him one on the day he scored his first goal.

  The occasional violence that would surface throughout Zidane's career was shaped, in his own telling, by an internal conflict: being an Algerian-Frenchman suspended between cultures, and surviving the streets of La Castellane. In an interview with Esquire, he described this dual identity directly: "I have an affinity with the Arabic world. I have it in my blood, via my parents. I'm very proud of being French, but also very proud of having these roots and this diversity."

  Transferred to Girondins de Bordeaux in the 1992-93 season, Zidane developed a midfield partnership with Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry that would later define the 1998 French national team. He won the 1995 Intertoto Cup and was runner-up with Bordeaux against Bayern Munich in the 1995-96 UEFA Cup. In 1996, he was named Ligue 1 Player of the Year. That same year, football agent Barry Silkman later recalled that Zidane had been offered to Newcastle United for £1.2 million. The club turned him down, claiming he was not good enough for the English First Division.

• 4. Italy and the World Stage

  ›

  Juventus paid for Zidane during the close season of 1996, and the impact was immediate. He won the 1996-97 Serie A title and the 1996 Intercontinental Cup in his first season, and was named Serie A Foreign Footballer of the Year. Alessandro Del Piero, who played just ahead of him at Juve, later recalled: "Zidane had an extraordinary talent, which contributed to his sole interest in helping the team. He was not a selfish player. He had a unique ability to be a great and to be a team player. I was lucky to play with him."

  In December 1997, Zidane's growing status saw him selected for a European XI that faced a World XI. The opposition's forward line featured Ronaldo and Gabriel Batistuta. The following season Zidane scored seven goals in 32 league matches as Juventus retained the Scudetto. In 1998, he was named FIFA World Player of the Year and won the Ballon d'Or.

  He also lost two Champions League finals with Juventus. In 1997, he could not make an impression against the close marking of Paul Lambert as Juventus lost 3-1 to Borussia Dortmund. In 1998, Juventus lost 1-0 to Real Madrid. Both defeats would eventually shape his desire to win that trophy by a different route.

  In 2001, Zidane was banned for head-butting Hamburger SV player Jochen Kientz and Juventus were eliminated in the Champions League group stage. That same year, he was named Serie A Foreign Footballer of the Year for the second time. Juventus had finished second in the league. Real Madrid were watching.

• 5. The Galactico Years

  ›

  Real Madrid paid a world-record fee of 150 billion Italian lire, equivalent to around €77.5 million, for Zidane in 2001. That record held for the next eight years. He signed a four-year contract and joined what the club called its Galacticos era.

  In his first season, in the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final against Bayer Leverkusen, Zidane scored the winning goal. He was 18 yards out. He watched and waited, adjusted his body, and in one smooth movement caught the ball full on the volley with his weaker left foot. It flew past goalkeeper Hans-Jorg Butt. A piece of narration that circulated afterward described the moment: "It was the moment of Zidane's apotheosis, more so than the 1998 World Cup final, because of the moment's grace and beauty, because of his control of everything around him. He was Bruce Lee in slow motion while kung-fu chaos reigned around." The goal has since been cited as one of the greatest in Champions League history.

  The following season, starring alongside Luis Figo in midfield, he helped Real Madrid win the 2002-03 La Liga and was named FIFA World Player of the Year for the third time. In 2004, UEFA's fiftieth-anniversary Golden Jubilee Poll saw fans vote him the best European footballer of the previous 50 years.

  His final season at Real Madrid ended without a club trophy, but on the 7th of May 2006 he played his farewell match, scoring in a 3-3 draw with Villarreal. The squad wore commemorative shirts reading ZIDANE 2001-2006. The 80,000 fans inside the Santiago Bernabeu held up a banner: "Thanks for the magic." He left for the World Cup having scored nine goals and provided ten assists in 28 league games that season.

• 6. The Final Tournament

  ›

  France had struggled to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. Coach Raymond Domenech urged Zidane out of international retirement. He made his competitive return in a 3-0 win over the Faroe Islands on the 3rd of September 2005 and helped France climb from fourth place to win their qualifying group. On the 27th of May 2006, Zidane earned his hundredth cap in a 1-0 friendly win over Mexico. It was also his last match at the Stade de France.

  France reached the final. Seven minutes into the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin, Zidane scored a Panenka-style penalty, the ball striking the crossbar before bouncing over the line. It made him only the fourth player in World Cup history to score in two different finals, alongside Pele, Paul Breitner and Vava. He also became tied for first with Vava, Pele and Geoff Hurst with three World Cup final goals.

  In the 110th minute, Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi in the chest and was sent off. It was the 14th red card of his career and his second across two separate World Cups, joining Cameroon's Rigobert Song as the only players to achieve that distinction. Italy won the penalty shootout 5-3. Zidane did not participate.

  French newspaper Le Figaro called the headbutt "odious". L'Equipe's front page asked what parents should tell their children. Yet 61 percent of French people polled in the immediate aftermath said they had already forgiven him. Pep Guardiola had written during the tournament that Zidane exerted such influence that "France are never disorganised". The day after the final, Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball as player of the tournament.

  It later emerged that Materazzi had insulted Zidane's sister. In 2010, Zidane said he would "rather die than apologize" to Materazzi, but also admitted he "could never have lived with himself" had he stayed on the pitch and helped France win. His own accounting: "If you look at the fourteen red cards I had in my career, twelve of them were a result of provocation. This isn't justification, this isn't an excuse, but my passion, temper and blood made me react."

• 7. A Coach Like No Other

  ›

  Zidane was appointed head coach of Real Madrid Castilla in June 2014. The arrangement involved a legal complication from the start: on the 29th of August 2014, the director of Spain's National Football Coach Education Centre reported him for coaching without the necessary badges. The official match reports listed another man, Santiago Sanchez, as head coach, with Zidane as assistant. The centre's director stated plainly that this hierarchy "only exists on paper".

  On the 4th of January 2016, Real Madrid dismissed Rafael Benitez and appointed Zidane head coach on a two-and-a-half-year deal. Five days later, his first match as manager: Real Madrid beat Deportivo La Coruna 5-0. On the 2nd of April, in his first El Clasico, he led Real to a 2-1 win at the Camp Nou, ending Barcelona's 39-match unbeaten run.

  What followed was unprecedented. Real Madrid won the Champions League in May 2016, defeating Atletico Madrid in a penalty shootout. Zidane became the seventh man to win the European Cup as both player and coach, and the second to do so with Real Madrid after Miguel Munoz. In his first full season, Madrid played 40 matches without a loss, a new Spanish record. In May 2017, they won the league title for a record 33rd time, then won the Champions League again on the 3rd of June 2017, becoming the first team to successfully defend the title in the Champions League era. A third consecutive Champions League title followed in 2018, defeating Liverpool 3-1. No manager had won three consecutive European Cup finals since the competition began.

  Zidane's substitutions became a coaching signature. Introducing Gareth Bale in the 2018 final proved decisive; Bale scored twice after coming on, turning a 1-1 draw into a 3-1 victory. He was named Best FIFA Men's Coach in 2017. On the 31st of May 2018, five days after that final, he resigned, citing the club's "need for change".

  He returned on the 11th of March 2019. In January 2020, he guided Madrid to a Supercopa de España title. After a three-month COVID-19 stoppage, Madrid won ten games in a row to take their 34th league title. He left for a second time on the 27th of May 2021. He was subsequently approached to become coach of the United States national team after the 2022 World Cup but declined.