BSP-30 Zinedine Zidane, master of dramatic departures

756

ZCZC

BSP-30

FBL-ESP-LIGA-REALMADRID-FRA-ZIDANE,PROFILE

Zinedine Zidane, master of dramatic departures

MADRID, May 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Just days ago Zinedine Zidane was
basking in the glory of becoming the first coach in history to win three
consecutive Champions League titles with Real Madrid and staking a claim as
one of the great coaches in history.

On Thursday, he said he was quitting the Spanish giants in an announcement
that seemed to have even taken the club’s president Florentino Perez by
surprise.

It appears the 45-year-old Frenchman has decided that it won’t ever get
better than this for him at the famously demanding 13-time European
champions.

“I don’t see myself continuing to win this year and I am a winner, I don’t
like to lose,” said Zidane, who was under contract with Real until 2020.

The Frenchman specialises in dramatic departures — in the 2006 World Cup
final in Berlin, his final appearance as a player, was cut short when he was
sent off for headbutting the Italian defender Marco Materazzi. Zidane said he
had insulted his family.

The 3-1 victory over Liverpool in Kiev on Saturday was the pinnacle of a
coaching career after his reign as a player with Real Madrid which peaked
when he scored the winning goal in the 2002 Champions League final against
Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow.

Zidane was considered one of the all-time greats as a player, his mixture
of sublime skill wrapped up in a muscular package driving France to victory
in the 1998 World Cup on home soil.

Affectionately known as “Zizou” in France, he was World Player of the Year
three times, in 1998, 2000 and 2003 in a career that started at Cannes, moved
onto Bordeaux before he moved into the big league with Juventus, staying five
years, before joining Real in 2001.

Incredibly, his record-breaking achievement in Kiev came less than three
full seasons in charge after he was promoted from his position as coach of
Real’s youth team.

It was only in January 2016 that he took charge of the full Real team.

“You can’t help but admire what he has done,” France manager Didier
Deschamps, who won the World Cup as a player alongside Zidane in 1998, told
France’s TF1 after the Kiev triumph.

“Already as a player he was an extraordinary player. He’s had a second life
as a coach and he is already an extraordinary coach. Achieving three
Champions League wins is fabulous.”

Madrid sports daily AS said after the final that Zidane was “the architect
of this glorious and possibly unrepeatable era”.

It is widely expected that Zidane will one day manage France himself. He
has never made a secret of his ambition to do so and speculation will now
grow that he will succeed Deschamps after this year’s World Cup finals.

Zidane has now won nine trophies since replacing Rafael Benitez in the
Santiago Bernabeu dugout in January 2016.

It is a remarkable record, all the more so for a man who before the Kiev
final admitted to not being the best tactician.

“I am not the best coach tactically, but I have other things,” he said
ahead of the final.

“I know very well how the dressing room and a player’s head works, and that
for me is very important.”

BSS/AFP/MRI/1923 hrs