move to Juve, Zizou was unable to replicate
his domestic form at Euro 96 as France
exited in the semi-finals, after successive
goalless draws in both knockout rounds.
When World Cup warm-up Le Tournoi (see
p74) came around in 1997, the knives were
being sharpened after Paul Lambert’s man-
marking job had nullified Zizou in Champions
League final defeat to Borussia Dortmund.
“He failed in the European Championship
and failed in the European Cup final in
Munich. Is Zidane, like Eric Cantona – the
man he superseded – not up to the big
occasion?” wrote the Independent about
France’s No.10. “However, his Champions
League performances for Juventus suggest
otherwise, as Manchester United found out
for themselves. It is hard to believe he’s still
only 24 and thus still learning. This will be
another step in his footballing education,
and in our knowledge of him.”
A year later, everyone’s knowledge of this
nascent talent would be plenty better. His
two headers in the 1998 final against Brazil
were brutal in their simplicity, but at Euro
2000 he was at his game-controlling peak
for France, winning the Golden Ball as the
tournament’s best player. “Zidane has an
internal vision,” Jacquet enthused of his
playmaker’s zenith. “His control is precise
and discreet. He can make the ball do what
he wants. But it’s his drive which takes him
forward. He is 100 per cent football.”
Left-back Bixente Lizarazu, World Cup and
Euros-winning team-mate, said the players’
plan was altogether simpler: “When we
don’t know what to do, we just give it to
Zizou and he works something out.”
Mostly stepovers, feints and roulettes but
like the best artists, Zidane also helped unite
a country. A second-generation Algerian
immigrant, he was part of a French team
comprised of “black, blanc et beur” (black,
white and Arab, a wordplay on the red, white
and blue colours of the French flag) players
which promoted racial diversity. Patrick
Vieira, Marcel Desailly, Lilian Thuram and
Youri Djorkaeff were also from immigrant
backgrounds, but Zidane was the star,
once topping a poll of ‘the most popular
Frenchman of all-time’ in Journal du
Dimanche, the French equivalent of the Daily
Mail. On the Champs-Elysees, an Algerian
flag flew alongside the French tricolour.
That this came at a time when Jean-Marie
Le Pen’s far-right Front National party had
support in the country – a situation with eerie
recent parallels as his daughter Marine did
equally well in the recent French general
election – was testament to Zidane’s appeal.
Yet, even at France 98, Zidane’s latent dark
side – a hangover from his upbringing – was
seldom far from the surface.“Art conceals the artist far more
completely than it ever reveals him”For more than 30 years, Dorian Gray’s
hedonism in pursuing his heart’s desires over
a life of late-Victorian morality courted high-
society scandal, rumour and intrigue, all
while he maintained his impossibly youthful
beauty. What the world didn’t know was
that Gray’s Faustian pact had ensured his
own portrait, rather than he, would grow old,
fade and bear the hideously deformed scars
of his libertine lifestyle. After all, nothing that
beautiful could possibly be responsible for
his rumoured crimes, could it?
To watch peak Zidane was to see multiple
personalities competing for dominance over
the other. His was an unsolvable paradox of
serene skill and uncontrollable temper that
brought 14 career red cards. It was as if every
moment of genius was designed to obscure
the true man within. “Magic,” he once said,
“is sometimes very close to nothing at all.”
Born in La Castellane, a council estate on
the northern suburbs of Marseille formed of
dusty streets and high-rise tower blocks,
Zidane never forgot his roots. The district is
what is known in French as a quartier difficile- a sensitive zone with high crime and
unemployment rates, but one that also
fosters a strong sense of community spirit.
“I have an affinity with the Arabic world –
I have it in my blood, via my parents,” Zizou
once said. “I’m very proud of being French,
but also very proud of having these roots and
this diversity. I’m first of all from La Castellane
and Marseille. Wherever I go, La Castellane is
where I want to go back to. It’s still my home.
“It’s true that it’s still a difficult area. But
there’s also a special culture there. Marseille
is probably a place like Liverpool, very vibrant
and very tough. My passion for the game
comes from the city of Marseille itself.”
Zidane’s father, Smail, would work in
a warehouse by day and as a department
store’s nightwatchman in the evenings to
give his family a comparatively easy life in
their rough neighbourhood. Little Zinedine –
still known by his middle name Yazid among
his close family and friends – used to suffer
from terrible nightmares when his father
was on night shifts.
Watched by his mother Malika from the
balcony of their flat, a five-year-old Zidane
began playing football on Place Tartane, an
80-by-12-yard slab of concrete that served
as the estate’s main square. Soon, he was
showing the sort of technique his hero Enzo
Francescoli displayed every week for Marseille,48 July 2022 FourFourTwo
“WHEn WE DOn’T KnOW
WHAT TO DO, WE GIVE
THE BALL TO ZIZOU AnD
HE CAn WORK IT OUT”
Clockwise from
above “See ya
later, Scholesy”;
Zizou’s headed
World Cup final
brace endeared
him to a nation;
“Allez les fleurs!”ZInEDInE
ZIDAnE