Beauty and Brutality

Zizou

Zinedine Yazid Zidane, also commonly known as Zizou was born on June 23, 1972, in the notorious and difficult neighbourhood of La Castellane in the city of Marseille in France. He was born into the family of Algerian immigrants and grew up proud and internalizing his multi-cultural heritage. The youngest of five, the boy quickly developed his sheer love and passion for football at a young age, and the ball became his favourite toy. Seen as not French but Algerian by some, early in his youth career Zidane had the tendency of being raw and sensitive and was prone to attack the players and spectators who insulted his racial background or family. Zidane’s upbringing was marked by dilemma of identity as he felt French, but was also deeply connected to his Algerian roots, as was many times the case in a multi-cultural France. He had head-butted an opponent when he was 13 due to his aggressive and fiery streak which lashed out sometimes.

The quiet lad from La Catellane soon turned into a man as he started to play professionally for the French clubs AS Cannes and eventually FC Bordeaux. He immediately stood out for his unique and elegant style of play along with unprecedented ball control. His grace was unparalleled, and his touch was extremely sublime which was awe-inspiring for the football world. Zizou refined his game to the peak and watching him play became mesmeric as he began to understand the beautiful game like a chess grandmaster. It was then at Juventus, that he fully bloomed and blossomed into a football superstar who was other-worldly and ethereal to his very core. Zidane became the classic Number 10 and orchestrated play like a serene Zen master as he glided past his opponents and conducted the game all by himself. Watching him play looked like he was Waltz dancing on the field, with the ball on a string which he could manipulate according to his will. He was a magician who did not play football but rather painted it like Picasso. Pure perfection as he was, still was not free from shortcomings and controversy surrounding him. Zidane was not the fastest player, nor he was the strongest, nor his stats were majestic and in Italy he was deemed as too slow and relaxed. But Zizou kept playing with all his heart and never changed his style of play and transcending stats in the process with his effortless, yet most complex of manuevers and poetic step-overs. Again, his rare volatile temper got the best of him when he head-butted Hamburg’s Jochen Kientz during a Champions League game and received a five-match ban.

Elegance Unparalleled

Mostly calm, composed and poised on the pitch, Zinedine Zidane became the first French player ever to be sent off for reacting violently to a challenge against Saudi Arabia at the 1998 FIFA World Cup taking place in his home country. Zizou went on to compensate and scored two powerful headers against Brazil in the Final which led France lifting the trophy on their home soil. The 2000 UEFA European Championships were again won by France as Zidane was touched by the angels and played like a demigod, thus almost single-handedly winning the tournament for his country, the same way Diego Maradona did with Argentina at the 1986 World Cup. His charisma and integrity were world class, and the playmaker won the hearts of the people around the globe with his fluid style of play and even became a hero of diaspora pride in Algeria. In the year 2001, the maestro moved to the Spanish Giants Real Madrid, then for a world record fee of 77.5 million Euros. The ‘Galacticos’ era at Real Madrid reached its pinnacle due to the alchemy of perfection by Zizou and other megastar players in the squad like Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, David Beckham and Ronaldo Nazario. Zinedine Zidane was much freer at Real Madrid and led the play with a quiet enigmatic authority. He rarely sprinted and yet the ball obeyed him in ways which with others it did not. Zizou never replied back to his critics as he expressed himself not with words, but with the ball. The left footed volley that he scored against Bayer Leverkusen in the final of the 2002 UEFA Champions League is still one of the best goals in history and seems divine just like Zidane himself. Zidane won the FIFA World Player of the year three times and the Ballon D’Or in the year 1998. He has also cemented his place in the Real Madrid and Juventus’s Greatest Eleven of all time.

Zizou’s some of the greatest final moments came during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which was his last tournament before he retired from football altogether as he captained the French side to the tournament and again hypnotized people with his signature ‘roulette’ spin which was one of the most lethal skills in Zidane’s arsenal. In the most legendary final against Italy, he first scored a chipped ‘Panenka’ penalty which was completely brazen against the Italian legend Gigi Buffon. Then, the most controversial and bizarre incident occurred later in the game when Zidane head-butted the notorious Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the chest and naturally received a red card. France went on to lose the World Cup Final without him and Zinedine Zidane’s legacy was somewhat tarnished globally as people criticized him for losing control during the most crucial point of his career and for the French national team. Zidane was awarded with the Golden Ball for being the best player of the tournament, but the damage had already been done.

The Infamous Headbutt

In 2010, Zidane said that he would rather die than apologizing ever to Marco Materazzi. Reports came out afterwards that Materazzi had made crass comments about Zidane’s sister, which had led the Frenchman to lose his cool and explode. Although reserved, humble, soft-spoken and shy, Zizou was not the one to tolerate disrespect and was very much attached and protective of his family and Algerian roots. Undoubtedly the best French football player of all time, Zinedine Zidane is also the most elegant player of all time. Further, he printed his name on the list of the best coaches of all time when he won three consecutive Champions League titles as a coach with his former team Real Madrid, a feat that had never been achieved before. His moments of controversy highlighted the humanity of otherwise an otherworldly genius. Zidane is a great man par excellence and an artist who refuses to explain his masterpiece. Zizou walked away from football not as a flawless saint, but as a figure of contradictions- human and divine, fragile and immortal, embodying both beauty and brutality.