The former Juventus player does not forget the past: “Marcello was fundamental for me. Alex? In Turin there were many strong teammates, but he had something different”
Zinedine Zidane is elegant even while walking around the city. We immediately notice this as we walk alongside him through the center of Cannes, where Zizou has arrived to take part in the Match des Légendes, a charity match between old glories of French football. Even when he stops to take a photo or says hello by waving. In Cannes they treat him like a son and venerate him like a god at the same time. He is protected, pampered, loved. When he arrives at the stadium, there is a sort of respect mixed with adoration towards Zizou. Photos, scarves, even a painting with the shirt of Enzo Francescoli (the 1998 Ballon d’Or idol who also named one of his sons after him) to be signed: spending half an hour a stone’s throw from Zinedine means enjoying this dispassionate love of the fans towards him. King and prodigal son together. Here for everyone it is just “Z”, which is read as “Zed”. They saw him grow, become a champion and take flight. He played in the red and white for three years, from ’89 to ’92, making around sixty matches in Ligue 1 and showing the first flashes of pure talent. On the other hand, bad things have never happened to him. A throw, a shot from the edge, even a disengagement touch: it was all beautiful to see. The footballer Zidane preserved an out-of-catalogue, innate harmony in his movement. Unique. And now, when – almost 35 years later – he wears the red and white number 10, it feels like getting into a DeLorean and taking a leap back in time like in Back to the Future. “Z”, in Cannes, met Veronique, with whom he then started a family. Here he learned to head. So good that, after the double in the 1998 World Cup final, he called his old coach. As if to say: “You taught me well”. He grew up, he made his debut with the greats, making Jean Varraud proud. In fact, it was he who reported Zinedine when he played for Saint-Henri and then at Septèmes-les-Vallons. Here Zidane also experienced the pain of defeat: an inevitable relegation in a bad season, which ended with the transfer to Bordeaux. They also “beaten” him when needed. At 16 he was expelled for a reaction foul and the club sent him to clean the toilets of the sports center for a week. He entered first and left last. On the pitch, however, he is already incredibly harmonious. When he made his debut he was still a minor, but it was immediately clear to everyone that he had found a star. One from another planet or something. That passes every hundred years or maybe never more. Off the field, “Z” never changed. Indeed, perhaps, in Cannes, from what they say, he was even a little more talkative. Over the course of his career he became more and more closed off. Out of shyness, not out of arrogance. It can be said that he was the most mysterious and impenetrable of modern champions, a champion forced – due to what he did with the ball at his feet – to spend a lifetime in the spotlight but inclined, by his very nature, to hide in the shadows, without ever giving too much of himself away. A Berber with icy eyes.