ballet dancer for the man she first met as
a 17-year-old in Cannes in 1989 – her future
husband had clearly been taking notes. On
the edge of the box, Zizou pirouetted en
pointe, raised his left foot and met the ball
with a volley of such technical precision that
even this Bolshoi principal couldn’t believe it.
“Toma, toma, toma!” he shouted (“have it,
have it, have it”), before sprinting 60 metres
around Hampden in total delirium.
“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,” Madrid’s
left midfielder that day, Santi Solari, later
recalled. “For people to remember goals and
make the jump from sports to the wider
public, there has to be something extra. In
this case, the finish is so artistic, it’s in the
45th minute, on the 100th anniversary of
the club, in the Champions League final...
and it’s the winner.”
Mortals would have controlled the ball and
passed. On the biggest club stage of all, only
the true artist would even consider shooting.
“I tried to score the same way again later,
even during shooting an advertisement,”
Zidane later revealed. “It never happened
again. Never. I tried in training, but it never
happened. It was perfect that day.”
That it secured La Novena, Real Madrid’s
ninth European Cup, only added to its allure.
“That goal was really important because of
everything that built into it,” Zidane told FFT.
“The thing I didn’t have was the Champions
League. I’d lost it twice with Juventus – that
was the only thing that I hadn’t won. When
a club pays €78m for you, it’s because you
have to do something very big! People say,
‘Well, he cost a lot of money but he won the
Champions League.’”
It also cemented the sort of crossover
appeal that had been building but was yet to
take off. The year before, Zidane had found
himself in a hotel room next to Andre Agassi,
but was too shy to knock on the eight-time
Grand Slam tennis champion’s door. He
didn’t possess Ronaldo’s impish brilliance,
Luis Figo’s suave mannerisms, nor DavidBeckham’s rock star appeal. Frequently
monosyllabic, Zidane’s art was based on
football as a meritocracy, centred solely
on the pitch. The move to Madrid, however,
brought him to global attention.
“One of the most inspiring nights of my
life,” said basketball royalty Magic Johnson
after watching Madrid beat Depor 3-1 in
January 2002, six months before the volley
that changed Zizou’s life forever. “Zidane is
a phenomenon, as good as me and Michael
Jordan put together.”
Four years earlier, before France’s home
World Cup of 1998, there was little to suggest
that Zidane’s name would ever be spoken
of among his contemporaries, let alone the
biggest names in sport, with such reverence.
Infamously, Blackburn chairman Jack Walker
is reported to have asked “why do we need
Zidane when we’ve got Tim Sherwood?”
after manager Kenny Dalglish requested the
Frenchman’s signing back in 1995, while
Newcastle turned down Zizou a year later.
Though he scored twice on his debut for
Les Bleus to rescue a 2-2 draw against the
Czech Republic in August 1994 – the first
a staggering dribble and left-footed smash
from 30 yards – Zidane played second fiddle
as playmaker until Eric Cantona kung-fu
kicked his way out of Aimé Jacquet’s plans.
Despite winning the Ligue 1 Player of the
Year award for Bordeaux which earned hisFourFourTwo July 2022 47Above “Will
you be showing
Zidane: a 21st
Century Portrait”
Top Ol’ Big Ears
gets ready for
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