Zinedine Yazid Zidane is a former French football player of Kabyle Algerian descent who has starred for both the French national team and for four European club teams, most recently Real Madrid.
Zidane received international attention with two headed goals in the 1998 World Cup final against Brazil that essentially won his country’s first ever FIFA World Cup title.
He has been elected FIFA World Player of the Year three times (1998, 2000, 2003), a record that has only been matched by Ronaldo, and once as European Footballer of the Year (1998). In 2004, Zidane was included in the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living footballers (50 active, 75 retired), as selected by Pelé to mark FIFA’s centenary celebrations.
As announced on 25 April 2006, Zidane retired from international football after the 2006 World Cup Final on 9 July 2006.
Zidane got his start in football at an early age when he joined the junior team of US Saint-Henri, his local club in the La Castellane district of Marseilles. He moved on to Septemes Sports Olympiques after Saint-Henri’s coach convinced its director to sign him. After leaving Septemes at the age of 14, Zidane participated in the first year junior selection for the league championship. He was called in for three days at the sport regional centre in Aix-en-Provence, where Jean Varraud, AS Cannes’ recruiter, took notice of the French-Algerian player. Zidane ventured off to Cannes for what was intended to be a six-week stay, but he remained at the club for four years to play with professionals. After spending four years with Bordeaux, he was transferred to Italy’s Juventus F.C. for a fee of £ 3 million.
At Juventus, he was one of the top players of Marcello Lippi’s team, along with countryman Didier Deschamps, Alessandro Del Piero, and Edgar Davids. His team won two Serie A titles and reached two consecutive UEFA Champions League finals, in 1997 and 1998, losing both, the latter to the Spanish club Real Madrid, the team for which he would next play.
In 2001, Zidane was transferred from Juventus to Real Madrid on a four-year contract. The transfer fee was € 66 million, the highest in football history. His fellow Galacticos at Madrid included David Beckham, Raúl González, Luís Figo, Ronaldo, and Roberto Carlos. He scored a spectacular winning goal in a 2-1 win over the German team Bayer Leverkusen in the 2001-2002 Champions League final at Glasgow’s Hampden Park.
On 7 May 2006, Zidane played his last home game for Real Madrid at the famous Santiago Bernabéu stadium. His team-mates wore special jerseys that had ZIDANE 2001–2006 written on the bottom of the club logo. The Real Madrid fans gave him a warm reception and kept cheering him throughout the game. The opponent team was Villarreal CF and the game ended in a 3-3 draw. He scored the second goal for Real Madrid. After the game, Zidane swapped jerseys with Juan Roman Riquelme, the Villarreal CF and Argentinian midfielder. Zidane was given a massive ovation by spectators, which left him in tears.
Zidane holds dual citizenship of both France and Algeria, and therefore could have played for Algeria. However, Algerian national coach Abdelhamid Kermali denied him a position on the team, arguing that the young midfielder was “not fast enough”. Zidane earned his first cap with the French national football team on August 17, 1994, coming on as a substitute in the 63rd minute of a match against the Czech Republic. France was behind 0-2 when Zidane came on and subsequently scored two goals, to make the final score 2-2.
Zidane was a member of the French national football team in the 1998 FIFA World Cup. During France’s second match of the first round, he received a red card and a two-game suspension in a 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia for stamping on Saudi Arabia’s team captain Fuad Amin. Reports from people close to Zidane stated that Amin had provoked him verbally. After scoring in the penalty shootout against Italy in the quarter-final, he scored his only regular goals of the tournament in the final against Brazil, leading his team to a 3-0 victory, with France winning its first ever World Cup championship. This was also the first time in 20 years that the host country’s team had won the tournament.
Two years later, at the Euro 2000 championship, he helped his team reach the final with inspired play and important goals, in quarter-finals against Spain — via direct free kick — and a golden goal penalty against Portugal in the semi-final. France went on to win the tournament, making it the first team since 34 years to hold both the World Cup and the European Cup. Subsequently, his team was ranked 1st in the world.
Injuries prevented Zidane from performing at his best in the 2002 FIFA World Cup. France’s attempt at defending their title was unsuccessful. The team was eliminated in the first round without scoring a single goal. Zidane rushed back from his injury in time to play in France’s last game, but could not perform at his usual level.
On August 12, 2004, after France lost in Euro 2004 to the eventual winners, the Greek national football team, Zidane retired from international football.
However, after France experienced serious problems in attempting to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Zidane announced on August 3, 2005 that he was coming back to play for France. He made his competitive return in the 3-0 FIFA World Cup qualifier win against the Faroe Islands on September 3, 2005, and France went on to win their qualifying group.
On 25 April 2006, after an injury-plagued season at Real Madrid, Zidane announced that he would retire from professional football following the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals in Germany.
On May 27, 2006, Zidane earned his 100th cap for France in a 1-0 victory over Mexico at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris. It was his last match in the stadium and he became only the fourth Frenchman after Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps and Lilian Thuram to earn a hundred national caps. He was substituted early in the second half.
In the closing minutes of France’s second match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, against South Korea, Zidane was given a yellow card for a late tackle, his second booking of the tournament. As a result, he was suspended from the third and final match of the group stage. France nonetheless beat Togo 2-0, allowing Zidane to play in the knockout stage. He returned to the pitch in the Round of 16 match against Spain in Hanover on June 27, 2006. Zidane assisted Patrick Vieira on the second goal by sending a free kick into the penalty area. During stoppage time, he scored the final goal of the match, capping a 3-1 victory.
The win sent France into a quarterfinal against defending champions Brazil, in a rematch of the 1998 final. On a free-kick opportunity, Zidane assisted on a Thierry Henry goal for the first time in his international career, propelling France to a 1-0 win over the Seleção. Zidane was named Man of the Match by FIFA’s Technical Study Group. In the semifinal against Portugal four days later, Zidane scored a penalty kick against Ricardo for the only goal of the match and saw France through to the final against Italy.
On July 9, 2006, Zidane played his second World Cup final – his final game – and scored in the 7th minute from the penalty spot with a chip shot that hit the crossbar before narrowly bouncing behind the goal line. He became one of only four footballers to achieve the feat of scoring in two different World Cup finals, sharing the honour with Pelé, Paul Breitner, and Vavá. This goal also made him one of the top goalscorers in World Cup final matches, with 3 goals, tied for first place with Vavá, Geoff Hurst and Pelé. He almost scored a second goal during the first period of extra time, but his header was saved by Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. He was sent off (see below) in the 110th minute, and thus did not participate in the penalty shootout which Italy won 5-3.
Despite the subsequent controversy over his offence in the final, Zidane was awarded the Golden Ball as best player in the 2006 World Cup after a poll of journalists covering the tournament. He received 2,012 votes, ahead of Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro (1,977s) and Andrea Pirlo (715). The ballot remained open until midnight on the day of the final, making it impossible to determine how many votes were cast before Zidane’s offence.
In the 110th minute of the World Cup final against Italy, Zidane was sent off for headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest in an off the ball incident. Video replays showed Materazzi holding Zidane and pulling his shirt lightly after Italy had captured the ball in an attack by the French team. Materazzi let go, and after a brief exchange of words, Zidane walked away from him. Then, the Italian appeared to be saying something. Zidane turned around, took a few short steps, lowered his head and butted Materazzi in the chest, sending him to the ground. Although play was halted, referee Horacio Elizondo did not appear to have seen the confrontation. After the intervention of the fourth official Luis Medina Cantalejo, Zidane was shown the red card and sent off. He gave the captain’s armband to Willy Sagnol (in order to hand it to Fabien Barthez) and exited the pitch.
What exactly had prompted Zidane’s violent offence remained debated for several days after the match. Newspapers had lip readers try to interpret what Materazzi had said. They came up with different interpretations, ranging from racist remarks concerning Zidane himself, to obscene and insulting comments about Zidane’s wife, mother, or sister. A prevalent claim was that Materazzi had called Zidane “the son of a terrorist whore”.
Materazzi admitted that he had insulted Zidane, but stressed that the insults were “the type that we’ve heard before so many times on the pitch, and sometimes we don’t even notice it.” He insisted that the insult was not racist in nature, nor did it involve Zidane’s mother.
Three days after the match, Zidane gave two television interviews. On Canal+, he stated that Materazzi had seriously insulted his mother and his sister, that he would “rather have taken a blow to the face than hear that,” and that Materazzi had repeated his insults several times. He apologized to viewers and “people in education whose job it is to show children what they should and shouldn’t do”, adding that he did not regret his offence because “it would be like admitting that he [Materazzi] was right to say all that.” On TF1, Zidane was asked if the insults were of a racist nature, to which he responded “no.” When asked if they were referring to his family, he replied “yes”, confirming his earlier statements.
Materazzi continued to reject the claim that the insult had involved Zidane’s mother.
After the French national football team had returned to Paris, President Jacques Chirac hailed Zidane as a national hero, a “virtuoso” and “a genius of world football.” He added: “You are also a man of heart and conviction. That is why France admires and loves you.” A few days later, Chirac said that, while he understood that Zidane had been provoked, the offence was unacceptable, nonetheless. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria sent Zidane a letter of support, expressing solidarity with him, in the name of the Algerian people. Speculation about the alleged racial component of Materazzi’s insults led the incident to being interpreted as a symbol of Europe “grappling with multi-culturalism”.
Criticsm of Zidane’s actions included French newspaper Le Figaro, which called the headbutt “odious” and stated that Zidane’s “unacceptable gesture was sanctioned properly.” Claude Droussent, editor-in-chief of French sports daily L’Equipe compared Zidane to Muhammad Ali, but added that neither Ali, nor Jesse Owens nor Pelé had “broken the most elementary rules of sport” like Zidane did. He questioned how Zidane could explain the offence to his four sons and “millions of children around the world.” On the following day, he issued an apology for his statements, saying: “If they [my words] hurt you, I apologise.” A sportswriter for the Boston Globe stated that “on most professional fields of play in the U.S., it’s more of a news bulletin if someone isn’t insulting your mother (emphasis added).”
Zidane’s sponsors announced that they would stick with him. A French advertising executive was quoted saying that the “childish gesture” would not do him harm, but give “a more human image of the hero,” and that it would “bring the icon closer to the people.”