The two lives, the family, the future as a coach of France: the 50th anniversary of star Zidane

In these hours he is saying around that he has “The flame that burns inside him”, therefore he will train again – there is France waiting for him after the World Cup in Qatar – and who are not proud of the header he gave to Materazzi and which brought down the curtain on his fabulous career, but “these are things that are part of my journey », Explained Zinedine Zidane. He turns 50 today the most fascinating but also the most mysterious and the most impenetrable of modern champions, a champion forced – for what he did with the ball at his feet – to stay all his life under the spotlight but inclined – by his very nature – to hide in the shadows, never giving too much of himself. Zinedine Zidane lived two lives, different in their path but similar in their destiny.

He was a fabulous footballer, Zizou, origins Berber, his parents had immigrated to France in the early 1950s, adolescence spent in Marseille, playing on the street, forging art and character. On the pitch he was a cuirassier with the movements of a dancer, a 10 like few are born in the world, hard as steel in the contrasts and at the same time brilliant when it came to inventing football. In Italy – in the second half of the 90s – he experienced seasons on the crest of the wave with Lippi’s Juve: first he had played in France (Cannes and Bordeaux) and later went to close his career at Real Madrid, in the club that has become his home. The year that consecrated it as King of football was 1998, when he dragged France to win the first World Cup in his history and shortly after he won the Ballon d’Or: if it happens to everyone in life to feel invincible even for a single moment, it happened to Zizou in those months.

As a coach, in his second life, he didn’t miss a beat. He found himself almost by chance on the bench of the most successful team in the world, Real Madrid. He did not tremble, he imposed his personality. And he won a lot, in a short time. 3 Champions, 2 national titles, 2 Spanish Super Cup, 2 Uefa Super Cup and 2 Club World Cup. Total: 11 trophies. His mentor, Real president Florentino Perez once said that Zidane is “a blessing from heaven”; Merengues fans love it.

The Frenchman – now married for almost thirty years to Veronique, four sons, all footballers who are trying to walk in their father’s footsteps – has the aura of great stars: it’s magnetic, he knows how to be heard by his players, shuns controversy, shuns poisons with the innate elegance that has always been recognized.

Michel Platini, the other king in the history of French football, once said that “no one in the world has ever had such an intimate relationship with the ball”, for Gennaro Gattuso – who has been his opponent many times – “Zidane was a magician: when you faced him you felt like you were playing the game of three cards: lu made you “ball is there, ball is not there” and you were screwed ». Zizou was one of the greatest interpreters of one of the most sensational shots in the game, the so-called “Veronica”: the trick of those who rotate on themselves to hide the ball and make the opponent’s head spin. To celebrate his 50th birthday, Zidane, pulled by the jacket by the sheikhs of PSG, but determined to wait for the French national team, will devote himself to his hobby: underwater fishing. There are men who are kissed by a lucky star. Zidane has the destiny of the winners in his jacket pocket.

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