Zinedine Yazid Zidane (born 23 June 1972) is a
retired
French World Cup-winning
footballer. Widely considered one of
football's all-time greats, Zidane played for club teams in France,
Italy and Spain, and was a member of the
French national team. His
career accomplishments include helping France win the
1998 FIFA World Cup and
UEFA Euro 2000, in addition to winning the
2002 UEFA Champions
League as a
galactico with
Real Madrid.One of only two three-time
FIFA World Player of the Year
winners along with
Ronaldo, Zidane was also
named the
European Footballer of the
Year in 1998. He retired from professional football after the
2006 FIFA World Cup
Club career

Zidane playing for Real Madrid in
2005.
Zidane
joined the junior team of US Saint-Henri, a local club in the La
Castellane district of Marseille
. At the age of 14, he participated in the
first-year junior selection for the league championship, where he
caught the attention of
AS Cannes scout
Jean Varraud. He went to Cannes for a six-week stay, but ended up
remaining at the club for four years to play at the professional
level. Zidane played his first
Ligue 1 match
at seventeen, and scored his first goal on 8 February 1991, for
which he received a car as a gift from the team president. His
first season with Cannes culminated in a
UEFA
Cup berth.
Zidane was transferred to
Girondins de Bordeaux for €7
million in the 1992–93 season, winning the
1995 Intertoto Cup and finishing
runner-up in the
1995–96 UEFA Cup
in four years with the club. He played a set of midfield
combinations with
Bixente Lizarazu
and
Christophe Dugarry, which
would become the trademark of both Bordeaux and the 1998 French
national team.
In 1995, Blackburn Rovers
coach Ray Harford had
expressed interest in signing both Zidane and Dugarry, to which
team owner Jack Walker reportedly
replied, "Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?"
In 1996, Zidane moved to Champions League winners
Juventus for a fee of £3.2 million, and won
the
1996–97 Scudetto and
the
Intercontinental
Cup, but lost the
1997 UEFA Champions League
final 3–1 to
Borussia
Dortmund. He netted seven goals in 32 matches to help Juventus
retain the
Scudetto the
next
season and make their third consecutive
UEFA Champions League final
appearance, losing 1-0 to Real Madrid which would be his next
destination. Juventus were runners-up in
2000–01, but were eliminated in the group
stage of the Champions League, during which Zidane was sent off for
headbutting
Hamburger SV player
Jochen Kientz.
In 2001, Zidane joined
Real Madrid
for €78 million and signed a four-year contract. He scored the
match-winning goal, a thunderous volley hit with his weaker foot,
in Madrid's 2-1 win over
Bayer
Leverkusen in the
2002 UEFA Champions League
Final completing this
personal quadruple. The next season, Zidane helped Real Madrid
to win the
Spanish league
title and was named the
FIFA World Player of the
Year for the third time. In 2004, fans voted him atop
UEFA's fiftieth-anniversary
Golden Jubilee Poll, and he was
included in the
FIFA 100.
Despite scoring his first-ever hat-trick in a 4-2 win over
Sevilla FC, Zidane's
final season of club football ended
trophyless. On 7 May 2006, Zidane, who had announced his plans to
retire after the 2006 World Cup, played his last home match and
scored in a 3-3 draw with
Villarreal
CF. The squad wore commemorative jerseys with
"ZIDANE
2001–2006" below the club logo.
International career

A Zidane football jersey, number 10
for France.
Both France and Algeria consider Zidane a
citizen, but he was ineligible to play
for the
Algerian national
team. There was also a rumor that coach
Abdelhamid Kermali denied him a position
for the Algerian squad because he felt the young midfielder was not
fast enough. However, Zidane dismissed the rumor in a 2005
interview, saying that he would have been ineligible to play for
Algeria because he had already played for France.
He earned his first cap with France as a substitute in a
friendly against the
Czech Republic on 17
August 1994, which ended in a 2-2 draw after Zidane scored twice to
help France erase a 2-0 deficit. After
Éric
Cantona was handed a year-long suspension in January 1995 for
assaulting a fan, Zidane took over the playmaker position. France
were eliminated in the
UEFA Euro 1996
semifinals in a penalty shootout by the Czech Republic after the
match ended 0-0 in extra time.
Zidane won the
1998 FIFA World
Cup with France, scoring twice in the final against defending
champions
Brazil. He
finished with two goals as France then won
UEFA Euro 2000, becoming the first team to
hold both the World Cup and the European Championship since
West Germany in 1974.
A thigh injury prevented Zidane from playing in France's first two
matches in the
2002 FIFA World
Cup. He rushed back prematurely for the third game despite not
being fully fit, but could not prevent France from being
ignominiously eliminated in the group stage without scoring a
single goal.
After France were eliminated in the
UEFA
Euro 2004 quarterfinals by eventual winners
Greece on 12 June 2004, Zidane
retired from international football. With the mass retirement of
veteran key players such as
Bixente
Lizarazu,
Marcel Desailly and
others, France struggled to qualify for the
2006 FIFA World Cup. However, at the
urging of coach
Raymond Domenech,
Zidane came out of retirement and was immediately reinstated as
team captain. He made his competitive return in a 3-0 win over the
Faroe Islands
on 3 September 2005, as France went on to win their qualifying
group.
On 27 May 2006, Zidane earned his hundredth cap for France in a 1-0
friendly win over
Mexico, becoming France's
fourth player ever to reach this milestone, after
Marcel Desailly,
Didier Deschamps and
Lilian Thuram. He was substituted early in the
second half.
2006 World Cup

Zidane during the 2006 World Cup
final.
After being suspended on yellow cards from the final match of the
group stage, Zidane set up a goal for
Patrick Vieira and scored one himself in the
91st minute of the second round match against
Spain. As France held Brazil to
just one shot on goal in the rematch of the 1998 final, Zidane's
free kick led to
Thierry Henry's
deciding goal, sealing a 1-0 win. Zidane was named
Man of the Match by FIFA. Before the final
match, Zidane was awarded the
Golden Ball as the best
player of the competition.
By scoring a 7th minute penalty in
the final, Zidane became only the
fourth player in World Cup history to score in two different
finals, along with
Pelé,
Paul Breitner, and
Vavá, in addition to being tied for first place
with Vavá, Pelé and
Geoff Hurst with
three World Cup final goals apiece. Zidane was sent off in extra
time after headbutting
Marco
Materazzi following verbal taunts from the Italian player, and
so did not participate in the penalty shootout, which Italy won
5–3. Despite the incident, Zidane was allowed to keep the Golden
Ball award.
Post-retirement
On June 1, 2009, Zidane was announced as the Advisor to the
President as
Florentino Perez was
named President of Real Madrid for the second time. He also
regularly plays for Real Madrid Veterans team. He along with
Jorge Valdano, General Director, and
Miguel Pardeza, Sporting Director,
will be the key decision makers on the sporting side of the
club.
Charity activities
In 2003, Zidane attended the Race Against Hunger organised by
Action Against Hunger Spain
(also known as Acción Contra el Hambre) held at the French Lyceum
of Madrid. This event raised an estimated 25,000 Euros.
On 24
February 2007, before a crowd of 10,000 fans at a match in northern
Thailand
for the
Keuydaroon children's AIDS charity, Zidane
scored the first goal and set up the second for a Malaysian
teammate as the match ended 2-2. The event
raised
฿260,000 ($7,750). This money paid for
the building of two schools and 16 three-bedroom houses.
On 19
November 2007, Zidane took part in the fifth annual Match Against
Poverty in Málaga
, Spain,
which also ended in a 2-2 draw; he went scoreless but set up his
team’s second goal. He and former Real Madrid teammate
Ronaldo, who collaborated in conceiving the
yearly event to benefit the
United Nations Development
Programme, regularly captain their respective teams consisting
of active footballers, other professional athletes and celebrities.
Zidane, a U.N. goodwill ambassador since 2001, stated before the
game that
“everyone can do something to make the world a better
place.”
In June and July 2009, Zidane toured across Canada with stops in
Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Although billed as Zidane and
"Friends", the likes of which included Fabian Barthez and Samuel
Eto'o, the exhibition matches featured local players. Tournament
organisers cited lack of sponsorship and support from the Canadian
Soccer Association for the disorganized rosters. Some proceeds were
given to Unicef.
Honours, and appointments
In 2004,
Forbes magazine named him
the 42nd-highest paid athlete in the world, with earnings of
US$15.8 million a year.
In November 2006, Zidane toured Bangladesh
as the guest of Nobel
Peace Prize winner Muhammad
Yunus. He also visited the Algerian birthplace of his
parents, and met personally with president Abdel Aziz
Bouteflika.
Filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon filmed a documentary
Zidane, which follows Zidane during an entire match,
filmed with 17 cameras. The documentary was part of the 2009
Full Frame
Documentary Film Festival.
Sponsorships
Zidane has had endorsements with many companies, including:
Adidas,
Lego,
France Telecom,
Orange,
Audi,
Volvic and
Christian Dior. These sponsorship deals
earned him €8.6 million on top of his €6.4 million Real Madrid
salary in his final season, making him the sixth-highest paid
footballer.
Personal life
Zidane's
parents, Ismail and Malika, both Muslims of
Kabyle descent from Algeria
, emigrated
to Paris
in 1953 from
the village of Aguemone in the Kabylie
region of
Algeria
. They moved to Marseille
a few years later, where Zidane was
born.
Zidane met his wife, Véronique, while playing for Cannes in the
1988-89 season. They have four sons: Enzo, Luca, Theo, and Elyaz.
Luca and Theo are both members of the
Real Madrid Infantil B Team.
Statistics
Honours
Bordeaux
Juventus
Real Madrid
International
Individual

Ballon d'Or awarded to Zidane in
1998.
- Ligue 1 Best Young Player - 1994
- Ligue 1 Best Player - 1996
- UEFA Champions League Best
Midfielder - 1998
- Ballon D'or - 1998
- UEFA Euro Player of the
Tournament - 2000
- Serie A
Foreign Footballer of the Year - 1997, 2001
- Serie A Footballer of the Year
- 2001
- Onze d'Or - 1998, 2000, 2001
- French Player of the Year -
1998, 2002
- UEFA Club
Footballer of the Year - 2002
- Don Balón Award Foreign
Player of the year in La Liga - 2002
- UEFA Team of the Year -
2001, 2002, 2003
- FIFA World Player of
the Year - 1998, 2000, 2003
- UEFA Golden Jubilee
Poll - 2004
- FIFA 100
- UEFA European
Championship Team of the Tournament - 2000, 2004
- FIFA World Cup
Golden Ball - 2006
- FIFA World Cup
All-Star Team - 1998, 2006
- FIFPro World XI All-Star Team -
2005, 2006
Orders
- Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1998, promoted to
Officier (Officer) in 2009
See also
Notes and references
-
http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/spieler/3111/zidane-zinedine/transferdaten.html
- The Ones That Got Away...Zidane -
VitalFootball.co.uk, 2006
- The scarred French messiah
- Le Buteur magazine 7 May 2005
- Zidane Sorry For Materazzi Headbutt,
PeopleStar.co.uk.. Retrieved on 2008-09-20.
- Real Madrid Board of Director Announcement
- Zidane big fan of Celtic star
Nakamura
- Zizou et les siens - nouvelobs.com
(French)
- Zinedine Zidane Football Profile | News | Pictures
- Yahoo! Eurosport UK
External links