Zinedine Zidane is a genius of the French football; he was the world champion in 1998, the champion of Europe in 2002, Italy, Spain, the winner of the League of Champions. He was admitted as the player of the year of FIFA and has been the owner of “A Golden Ball” three times. However, all brilliant club achievements cannot be compared with what Zidane has made supporting his national team, having turned into the team’s legend.
Zizou’s professional career developed promptly. He fell in love with football when he was seven, playing with the boys living in the neighborhood in a poor Marseilles quarter, inhabited mainly by the natives of Algeria and Morocco. When he was 10, he obtained the license of the football player and started to support a younger team of the local club. At the age of 14, he signed the first contract, moved to the resort small town of Cannes in French Riviera where he began to climb the top of the football Olympus.
He was not seventeen years old when his debut in a professional football took place. It occurred in a penultimate round of the championship in France 1988/89 in Nantes, in the game of “Cannes” with the local team which was supported by such well-known footballers as Desham and Desayi. On the 78th minute, Zidane replaced Martinez. The match came to the end in a draw 1:1. “I have been let out in the field only for 15 minutes but with such masters… “”Zizou remembered then. “” They were Zlatko Vuyovich and Rudi Krol. I touched the ball only three times, but I have never felt happier not only because I played with the real stars but with my idols. For a quarter of an hour I earned nearly five thousand francs “” it was six times more than my monthly salary as a trainee!” (Cohen) At the age of 19, Zidane ventured to move to a stronger club “” “Bordo”.
Here Zizou showed his best. Just in the first season, he became the best goal-scorer of the team. Wearing Bordo T-shirt, Zinedine learned the pleasure of the first victories, felt the taste of Euro cups and even was recognized as the best young player of the championship of France. “Zizou “” is like a dancer with a ball. He can repeat everything that he sees. He notices tricks, feints, unusual movements of the other players and can repeat them at once. He often makes the movements much better and more effectively”, – the head coach of Bordo, Laurent Kurbis, says about Zidane.
In 1996, it was the first time when the newly made star of the French football was put to the test. The contract with Juventus had already been signed, and Zinedine needed only to make a creditable showing in the European championship which passed in England. Shortly before the tournament, the trouble happened to Zizou — the football player got a concussion in a road accident. In a word, he came to the euroforum in a far from a good form. Probably, it was the main reason of his faded performance. So, Le Ble took off from the semi-final, though that team had quite a champion potential. “I received one useful lesson “” in similar tournaments it is necessary to play only when you are ready for all 300 %… I made an awful mistake, having insisted on the participation in Euro though I felt both physically and psychologically not quite good. Now, for the national team, there is only one purpose “” a victory in the local World Cup”.
Only two years passed, and Zidane managed to turn from the object of criticism into the hero of the nation and the best football player of Europe! A wonderful technique, improbable passes — this time Zidane was in an excellent form. This was experienced by all the rivals of the French national team without an exception. Brazil suffered more than others because of Zidane’s double to the gate which turned the final outcome of the match. Probably, Guy Lacombe forced Zizou to fulfill head-playing not without reason.
After the World Cup of 1998, the whole France was decorated with Zidane’s huge portraits. The inscriptions said: “Zidane to the presidents”. It was for the first time in history when the French national team won the highest football award. In a final, the Brazilian national team lost with the score “” 3:0. The victory was almost provided in the first time when Zidane struck the Brazilian gate with his headings twice.
Zinedine has scored a decent quantity of the solving goals for his long and successful career. He is among football players who do not hesitate to take the lead in the key matches, in the duels where the knees of the majority of the other footballers would simply begin to shake. Zidane was always quiet and cool.
The domination of Le Ble in the world football proceeded. The European championship of 2000 became as though the continuation of the local FIFA World Cup. Frenchmen were proved to be superior, and Zidane became the main ideological inspirer of the team again. This time, Zizou was given an opportunity to play as the shadow leader, though he did not do without heroism. It was Zinedine who scored a goal in a semifinal match with Portugal though it was extremely difficult to make: “The confusion proceeded for some minutes, and it was very difficult for me to concentrate. We have been playing for two hours or about that, and my feet were aching. But I knew that I should kick strongly and reliably. I felt a huge responsibility”.
Zinedine Zidane’s name is entered by gold letters in the history of the world football. He was always an example of the gentlemen’s behavior in the field for partners, rivals and fans, bewitching and admiring with his splendid and excitable playing. And if he had failures, they happened exclusively for objective reasons. For many generations of boys around the world, dreaming about football, he became an idol who was to be imitated. All the successes of the French national team of the last fifteen years, when “three-colored” became the world champions “” 1998, and the champions of Europe “” 2000, were associated with him.