Nickname Zizou, profession midfielder, a stealthy step that allows him to dance with the ball as few have been able to do so far. The King of body swerve, a panther who made the field his dance floor. 360° vision of the game, author thousand assists and acrobatic goals, a delight for the eyes of every good football lover, he managed to skip opponents like pins and turn their heads and confusing with his own prestige tricks.
During his 18 years of career he managed to win two Italian championships, an Italian Super Cup, a UEFA Super Cup, an Intercontinental Cup and an Intertoto Cup with Juventus, the last one also with Bordeaux. With the blancos jersey he won a Spanish championship and two Spanish Supercups as well as a UEFA Champions League, a UEFA Super Cup and an Intercontinental Cup. His curriculum is further extended with the French national team, winning the 1998 World Cup, with two goals in the final match, when his France beat Brazil 3-0 at home, and won the European 2000 played in Belgium and Holland. In the national team he has collected a total of 108 appearances, achieving 31 goals. At the individual level he won an edition of the Ballon d'or (1998) with the Juventus shirt and three of the FIFA World Player of the Year (1998, 2000, 2003).
After his career as a player, pass few years as an assistant to Ancelotti and coach of the youth after Real Madrid, on January 4, 2016, takes over on the bench of the first team for the exoneration of Rafael Benítez, manages to win since its debut three Champions League (a record he holds with Bob Paisley and Carlo Ancelotti), a Spanish league, two UEFA Super Cups, a Spanish Super Cup and two club World Cups.
A pretty good booty for one of the greatest players ever. I do not think he can ask for more to crown his career at best. A single flaw, his temperament, sometimes exaggerated, led him to make a serious mistake during the finals of the 2006 World Cup. A few minutes left at the end of extra time, Zinedine speaks something with Marco Materazzi, at a certain point he turns and pulls a head in the chest to the Italian defender that falls to the ground and Zidane is expelled. That was the first case of use of VAR even if at the time it was not contemplated, a sort of "pirate" replay on the field, since they were present at the stadium two mega screens which projected the game and therefore all the fans saw the now legendary replay of that "crime".
I had the opportunity to meet Zizou in person, many years ago while he was standing in front of my house when I was still living in the castle Baron Gamba park in 1997. At the time Juventus was coming to training during summer right in the country where I lived and still live , my father worked as guardian of a castle, the Baron Gamba indeed, and I had the extraordinary fortune of being able to see my idols pass under my house, in my yard, while they went to the gardens of the park to run. Zinedine was on that occasion with his wife and with Enzo one of his two sons, who at the time was 2 years old, in the garden of the park, he was in company of Didier Deschamps too, had recently coming to Juventus team and he didn't understand almost anything about Italian language, I remember I went to meet him encouraged by my father, since I was very shy, I spoke to him in French asking him for a signature, I clearly remember that he became all red on face and he replied very politely in his mother language almost thanking me, I do not remember the exact words but it seemed that he almost did not expect it, he signed my block notes and greeted me in an improvised Italian. As you can see from the following picture I still keep his autograph to which was added Deschamps on the same page of my notebook.
From that moment my estimation for him increased exponentially, I became really curious to see him in action in Juventus. I did not have to wait long, I was amazed to see him play, I had never seen so much elegance contained in a single player. The good Zizou, at least with the Juventus shirt, was a bit of fluctuating about performance. He alternated spectacular matches with performances in which he did not match almost anything. This fact attracted much criticism from him by a part of supporters and the press. When he moved to Real Madrid many of the skeptics had to change their minds, as soon as he won a Champions League, which he could not do with Juventus, and in one of the Champions League finals he played what is considered one of the best goals that he has ever made during his career, down below the video of that wonderful goal against Bayern Leverkusen in 2002.
He manages to make difficult things really easy.
Cit. Marcello Lippi
He was a champion with a gregarious mentality, calm, introverted. You had to tease him to make him react, and only then was he happy to joke with the others. His shyness was evident but sometimes turned into clever and then he made jokes or even jokes. He kept everything inside, even the tensions before a match: apparently it was very quiet.
Cit. Angelo Di Livio
I grew up on the street, playing for fun and to impress my friends, creating my own movements. It is there that one learns the most beautiful and inimitable things.
Cit. Zinedine Zidane
Skill of a magician, the midfield his dance floor, had the right solution at the right time. He lead the team like a movie director, he skip players with simplicity, with an extraordinary technique, I leave you with a video that contains some of his best beautiful skills ever.
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