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Zidane v Italy: what’s not to like?
Over 20 years after the red card, it will be his first home game as France coach.
Perched near the top of the vertiginous media tribune in Berlin, Zinedine Zidane’s feather-touch of a penalty happened in front of us. The headbutt didn’t. As if refusing to acknowledge what happened, the stadium giant screen went blank and the Russian journalist sitting alongside asked: ”Did Zidane just hit him?”
By the time I looked, Marco Materazzi was on the floor and Zidane was taking off his armband. The World Cup trophy stood on what looked like an upturned shoe horn and without fuss, Zidane walked past it and away from sight. It was the 14th red card of his career. Never again would the world see him as a professional footballer.
A “special” match
Over 20 years later, in what should be his third match as France coach and the first at home, Zidane and Italy will meet in the Nations League. “Italy is special, because I played there, because I know people, because I speak Italian. All of those things,” said Zidane at his unveiling as the successor to Didier Deschamps.
(The enigmatic answer reminded me of a press conference in the 2006 World Cup. The player of the match, as per convention, would appear, usually in their team attire, soon after the coaches had finished their media commitments and take a few questions. Adjudged the match’s best against Brazil, Zidane appeared over an hour later, immaculately turned out in a suit, received the award and strode out without a word. Media officers at FIFA and with the France team pleaded helplessness.)
A dream meeting on October 2 with Andrea Pirlo in the opposite dug-out and Paolo Maldini and Leonardo in the stands as technical director and special advisor respectively will not happen. Pirlo’s connection with a Russian betting agency came in the way of his appointment and Maldini and Leonardo left their posts soon after.
Maldini had been Zidane’s opponent in the 1998 World Cup quarter-final and it was by outjumping Leonardo that Zidane had headed France’s first goal in the final. (The second came from a Youri Djorkaeff corner-kick. Zidane was supposed to take it but I did, Djorkaeff told FourFourTwo in June 2026). Pirlo had been on the other side in the 2006 final.
Contrasting appointments
Assuming there’s no change, Zidane will be up against Roberto Mancini reigniting a rivalry from the 1990s in Serie A. If Zidane’s appointment was football’s worst kept secret, Mancini’s smacked of desperation. “Time was running out … I believed the person who should become the new coach of Italy is Roberto Mancini,” said Italian soccer federation president Giovanni Malagò.
The four-time world champions had been turned down by Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti. Given that Juergen Klopp has returned, Maldini and Co had hoped against hope that Guardiola would severely shorten his sabbatical. He didn’t. But why approach Ancelotti after he had renewed vows with Brazil?
With the late Gianluca Vialli, his former teammate and scoring partner, Mancini made Italy champions of Europe during a 37-match unbeaten run. He was also in charge when Italy failed to make the 2022 World Cup. And then he stood down for Saudi Arabia, a decision for which he has apologised.
Like Klopp, Mancini, 61, will have to restore former world and European champions to their position of glory. Their job will be like Deschamps’s was when he took charge in 2012. Zidane inherits a team fizzing with talent but who have come up short against Spain. In two stints at Real Madrid, he had found solutions to get the best out of a star-studded roster.
“I am not the best coach tactically, but I have other things,” Zidane has said. “I know very well how the dressing room and a player’s head works, and that for me is very important.”
With Cristiano Ronaldo in his pomp, Real would win by big margins (6-1 v Leonesa; 7-1 v Celta Vigo). They won a hattrick of Champions League titles and La Liga. After Ronaldo left and Zidane returned as head coach, they ground out wins on way to another Spanish league title. Real had four clean sheets, a first in five years, on the way to the 2019-20 title. At a time when Karim Benzema was left out of the France side by Deschamps, Zidane coaxed him back to form.
Lippi’s mantra
After Laurent Blanc and Deschamps, Zidane is the third member from the 1998 World Cup winning squad to be appointed France coach. Two of them, Deschamps and Zidane, had also learnt from Marcelo Lippi when they played in Italy. “With great players, the coach must simply make them understand the weight of certain situations, teach them a certain mentality, the importance of putting yourself at the service of the team,” Lippi has said. It’s a mantra Deschamps and Zidane have not forgotten.
It wasn’t only about whispering niceties to players, though, from the man born in a Marseille estate where life was tough and rough. Martin Odegaard was dropped from Real’s youth team and Thibaut Courtois from the first team.
Like Pele who finished a PT course, Zidane, 54, returned to school after retirement for a diploma in sports management. As a decorated player, he was eligible for a waiver while applying for the UEFA Pro Licence coaching badge but Zidane chose to complete the longer three-year module. Through different roles at Real—president Florentino Perez’s adviser, sporting director, Ancelotti’s assistant, coach at Castilla (Real’s youth team)—Zidane prepared to be a head coach. And then he waited five years for the France job. “It was the only thing I wanted to do,” he said.
With Eric Cantona banned for his kung fu-style kick and David Ginola on his way out, Aime Jacquet rebuilt the France team around Zidane. At club level, he has won pretty much everything as a player including a Champions League in 2002 with a goal for the ages with his weaker left foot. Zidane’s international career, like Michel Platini’s, started with two goals on debut and hauled France from the ignominy of failing to qualify for the World Cup to being world champions at home and the best team in Europe in 2000. France haven’t won it since. Can Zidane change that in 2028?
