Zidane loses final battle with his inner demons
MASSIMO MARZOCCHI
"IT'S hard to explain but I have a need to play intensely every day, to fight every match hard. This desire never to stop fighting is something I learnt in the place where I grew up. And, for me, the most important thing is that I still know who I am. Every day I think about where I come from and I am still proud to be who I am: first, a Kabyle from La Castellane, then an Algerian from Marseille, and then a Frenchman."
So spoke Zinedine Zidane in a revealing interview two years ago. To Zidane, a game of football is an opportunity to practise his art, but it is also a struggle with his opponents and his inner demons.
Anyone who has followed Zidane's career over the last decade will be aware that this most graceful of players still harbours the survival instincts of the boy from the streets of La Castellane, the toughest 'quartier' of Marseille, the toughest city in France.
That may help explain why the greatest footballer of his era has erred so badly on several occasions, and of course did so again on Sunday night in his last game as a professional on the biggest stage of all, the World Cup final.
It was not even the first World Cup where his street-fighter instincts had spilled over. In France '98 he was sent off and banned for two matches for stamping on Faoud Amin of Saudi Arabia.
Two years later he head-butted Hamburg's Jochen Kientz while playing in the Champions League for Juventus and was banned for five games. In total, he has been sent off 14 times in his career.
Perhaps Italy's Marco Materazzi remembered these incidents and pushed the right buttons to send this man, who usually appears such a sensitive soul, over the edge.
Those who know Zidane believe there are two parts of Zidane's life that he defends fiercely: first of all his family, and then his race and background.
Zidane's family are Berbers, originally from the Kabylie region of Algeria, a group distinct from Arabs. In a country like France where racial tensions are so wound up that National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen can openly criticise the national team for having "two many players of colour", the midfielder deserves praise for his bold stand against racism.
Yet Zidane and his team-mates should all be symbols of the success of a modern France. For someone who never fulfilled his boyhood dream to play for his hometown club Marseille, what he has achieved since then is remarkable. He was turned down by Marseille despite his fervent desire to play at the Stade Velodrome - he even named first son Enzo after his playing favourite, Marseille's Uruguayan playmaker Enzo Francescoli. Instead it was in Cannes, the Mediterranean film festival town, that the man known as "Zizou" to fans and team-mates and "Yazid" to close family and friends started out after being spotted by local scout Jean Varraud who died at the age of 85 during this World Cup.
At Cannes, his reaction to fans who shouted racial insults at him caused his coaches severe concerns. Born in a large family in a Marseille suburb to Algerian immigrants, he was - and still is - fiercely protective of his extended family, as well as his wife and children, doing everything possible to keep them out of the limelight.
But despite worries over his temperament, he made quick progress at Cannes and was transferred to Bordeaux, after which a series of events then combined to propel him towards the French national team. France's failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup saw Aime Jacquet replace Gerard Houllier as coach.
Zidane was starring for Bordeaux with fellow future World Cup winners Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry, the latter remains his best footballing friend, when skipper Eric Cantona earned a nine-month ban for attacking a Crystal Palace fan.
Zidane had already made his France debut with two goals as a substitute in a 2-2 draw with the Czech Republic but it was during the ban that Jacquet decided to dispense with the services of Cantona and David Ginola.
Instead he decided to build his team around Zidane and Youri Djorkaeff. Zidane's first tournament, Euro 1996, saw France exit on penalties in a semi-final to the Czech Republic. He moved on to Juventus, and it was in the summer of 1998 that his career and life were transformed by one match.
His World Cup started badly. A sending-off for a stamping offence saw him banned for two matches and he returned for the quarter-final with Italy, won on penalties after a goalless draw. Zidane was again muted when France beat Croatia 2-1 in the semi-final with two Lilian Thuram goals. In the final Zidane delivered with two headed goals in the 3-0 win over Brazil - a victory celebrated by two million French people on the Champs Elysees the day after.
Zidane's life was now transformed but the shy midfielder admitted that he found his new status hard to handle. The media attention circled around his family - he and Spanish wife Veronica have four sons - while he found himself being asked to comment on politically and religiously sensitive issues, as a Muslim who lives outwardly a westernised lifestyle.
Zidane was outstanding in Euro 2000 as France won the title but allowed Marcel Desailly to succeed retiring captain Didier Deschamps because he does not like speaking to the media.
"Speaking is an ordeal for me," said Zidane. He was ruled out of the first two games through injury as France failed to defend their world title by being eliminated in the first round in 2002 - the year his volley at Hampden Park won the Champions League for Real Madrid whom he had joined for a world record fee.
Some weeks after Euro 2004, where France lost to eventual winners Greece in the quarter-finals, he quit international football. But last year, with France's qualification campaign in trouble, he was lured back and despite a difficult group phase he started to roll back the years as the competition entered the knockout stages.
His match-clinching goal in the 3-1 last 16 win over Spain and his man-of-the-match display in the 1-0 win over Brazil in the quarter-finals took Les Bleus into the last four where Zidane's penalty settled the match with Portugal. The world awaited a glorious send-off in the final. No-one would have guessed that his famous temper would return at the worst possible moment.
Who knows what Materazzi said to re-awaken the dark demons in the depths of Zidane's soul. But one can hazard a guess that Materazzi would care little about his own actions if the expulsion of Zidane was the reward.
It is too easy to decry Zidane's action in Berlin's Olympic Stadium as shameful and a disgrace.
Of course it was, but it is more complicated than that. Zidane is not a player who spends the whole match snarling, snapping and swearing, getting his blood up to improve his game. Zidane was the most silent of players, all intensity and intent. That his why his assault on Materazzi, and before him Kientz, was all the more shocking.
As he begins a retirement which will be split between a new home in the Alps and another in Madrid, Zidane will now find that there is no escape from the spotlight he has always been so anxious to avoid. Everywhere he goes, he will be the flawed genius who stunned the world that night in Berlin.
FIFA denies video replay influenced red card
FIFA yesterday denied claims that video evidence was used to send off Zinedine Zidane in the World Cup final.
Both coaches, Italy's Marcello Lippi and France's Raymond Domenech, suggested after the match that the fourth official had only advised the referee to dismiss Zidane after watching a television replay of the France captain's blatant head-butt on Marco Materazzi. The incident was missed by Argentine referee Horacio Elizondo and his two assistants, but was brought to his attention by the fourth official, Spain's Luis Medina Cantalejo.
FIFA refuses to allow video evidence to influence refereeing decisions and insisted that its rules were adhered to in Berlin on Sunday. "The fourth referee saw the incident with his own eyes and told the referee and the assistant referee directly though their headsets," said FIFA spokesman Andreas Herren.
The game's governing body says the fourth official has no access to video replays and that although the fifth official - newly introduced for the 2006 World Cup - does have a TV monitor, he is not permitted to intervene. Although replays of Zidane's head-butt were not shown to fans on the big screen, they were witnessed on the hundreds of televisions in the Olympiastadion's media seats - and by millions around the globe watching on TV at home.
FIFA Sepp Blatter president believes that human error is part of the game, and opposes the use of technology to assist officials until it is proved to be "100 per cent reliable."
PHIL JOHNSON
Tears in Algeria
THE French were not the only ones to taste the bitterness of defeat following Sunday night's World Cup final.
In the Kabylie mountains of Algeria, relatives of French captain Zinedine Zidane gathered with others in his home village of Aguemoune to watch the game, little knowing of the agony to come.
Despite being born in France, Zidane is a national hero in Algeria. His parents left for France shortly before Algeria's brutal war of independence broke out in 1954, moving to a tough neighbourhood outside Marseilles. The France captain often returned to Aguemoune as a child during summer holidays and many say it is thanks to Zidane that fans there cheer on the country that ruled Algeria for 132 years and fought eight years to suppress its independence movement.
Zidane's red card late on in the defeat to Italy reduced many of Aguemoune's residents to tears. Zidane's brother Djamel, visiting on holiday from France, said: "Yes, Zinedine will come back to visit his family, his village and friends.
"I feel sad but it's good for him to stop playing football and take a rest."
Rabah Zidane, a cousin, hoped Zizou will "find enough time to come and visit his family" and said the player's actions were out of character. "Because of him we love France," said Rabah. "Zizou normally does not hit people. Materazzi must have said something serious."
The cousin said the family was pleased Zidane had been voted the tournament's best player yesterday, adding: "That gives us some relief."
Fans went silent inside 'Cafe Zizou' when Zidane was sent off. But they said the player's legacy as one of football's greats was assured. "Zizou will stay in my heart until the end," said 19-year-old supporter Fares Tadgenant.
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February 12, 2006, 06:43:39 PM