Elvin said:
You sure he deserves that, man ? Yeah he's a football legend, but not nesesarily a Juve legend 
Just saying
Just saying
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Zidane Announces Retiement (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Boudz
- Start date
All Juve players of 1996 deserve to be legends....
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Very nice information about Zidane in this article:
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The last games of Zinedine Zidane
IT’S a strange feeling having to remind yourself that Zinedine Zidane’s talent is not everlasting, and that he will no longer play football beyond this summer. It seems awfully soon to be thinking about savouring his last few matches, and even odder to be missing him before he has even got to Germany and his World Cup swansong. In making the announcement, on Tuesday, that he is to retire completely at the end of France’s tournament bid, a year before his contract expires at Real Madrid, Zidane brought forth a wave of nostalgia over his gifts – even before he has taken them off the game’s greatest stage. His exit lends drama, and no little intensity, to Les Bleus, who have long taken his genius for granted.
At the very most, he will have 13 games left to play – although that would mean France reaching the final in Berlin. Having gone public with his decision some six weeks short of the opening tie against Switzerland on June 13, Zidane has put to bed any professional dilemmas and can at least travel with an inner peace. In an improvement from Euro 2004 (at the end of which he briefly quit the inter national game, only to return halfway through qualifying for Germany), the question of his future won’t pollute the France camp either, since the answer is already known.
However, amid an ocean of tributes this week, Arsene Wenger emerged as one of the few to question the timing. After paying his own homage, the Arsenal manager and Champions League finalist said: “I saw him make his debut for Cannes, and it’s always sad to see the departure of a great player who has given so much pleasure for so many years. But I would have chosen a different way to break the news. I can’t help feeling it would have been better to do it after the World Cup.”
His sixth successive tournament finals with France will have the bittersweet taste of his last. The others all had their own individual flavour: a frustrating Euro 96, immediately following a car accident which left him decidedly shaky and in pain, where he was even forced to apply make-up to his face for the official team photograph to cover up the cuts and bruises; a home World Cup in 1998 which began with his being sent off and ended with his scoring twice in the 3-0 final triumph over Brazil; his finest hours in a simply magnificent Euro 2000; a 2002 World Cup ruined by injury, and with Euro 2004, the end of “la belle epoque” and the break-up of a team of friends.
Can he really be reborn, just before he hangs up his boots, in the space of a month and a half? The genius of Zidane, perhaps, lies in the ability to make people continue believing anything is possible.
That’s how Raymond Domenech, the current France manager, put it when Zidane returned to the national side after his sabbatical season last August in a 3-0 victory over the Ivory Coast. “This match certainly proved something to me,” an under-pressure Domenech said. “It reassured everyone. I never doubted the calibre of the players in our team, but sometimes, you could sense a certain apprehension. That fear was gone. No great exuberance, but did you see him take to the field? The others all follow him. That’s Zidane in a nutshell, he knows how to make his team-mates want to follow him.”
Later, Domenech would say of his captain: “I don’t need any lengthy debates with him, and he doesn’t need a thousand words in response. Boss or not, that’s not the issue with him. Zizou would put everyone at ease by saying ‘don’t worry, everything will work out fine’.”
Zidane’s story has been as easy to identify with as it has been popular. His childhood in the poor quarter of Marseille, his first training shoes with the great Raymond Kopa’s name etched onto them, the poster of Michel Platini in Juventus colours on his bedroom wall. And the games, never-ending, in the back lanes and on the stone playing fields of the old port city. He told me much later, in that droll way of his: “Give me grass, and studs, and I’ll show you beauty. But believe you me, on tarmac, and in trainers, I am much, much better … ”
There’s no arrogance in that statement. It’s simply not a part of Zidane’s make-up.
Discovered by Jean Varraud, a scout at Cannes with whom he retains a close bond of friendship, Zidane left his parents’ home at the age of 14 and made his top-league debut at 18, in May 1989. He received a Fr5000 (£500) bonus for the privilege, five times his weekly wage at the time. For his first goal, the club president, Alain Pedretti, gave him a car. The night before, he had met a dancer, Veronique. She is, today, his wife and the mother of their three sons.
That kind of seamless narrative seems to follow him around. He was transferred to Bordeaux, and made his debut for France in that city, in August 1994. Trailing 2-0 to the Czech Republic, Zidane came on as a substitute and struck a double. The Platini poster? He took over that jersey in the summer of 1996, settling into Gianluca Vialli’s old apartment, close to the main railway station, asking me to send him copies of l’Equipe and France Football magazine every week so he would feel less detached from home.
Having made Turin his home, it was to be a five-year idyll – save for two lost Champions League finals. But in 2001, he was transferred to Real for almost €70 million (£47m). He emerged from his innate shyness but not from his honest education, nor from his natural sense of values. The sum involved scandalised him, but he escaped from the madness surrounding him at the time and reached the pinnacle of a club footballer’s career one summer night in 2002, at Hampden Park.
After a volley with his left foot which defeated Bayer Leverkusen in the Glasgow rain and brought gasps from a crowd reared on the great Real victory of 1963, Zidane admitted: “Now, I feel satisfied.”
That night, David Beckham compared him to a ballerina for the sheer grace of his movement, control and passing. Unfortunately, the last dance approaches. And you would have to be blind not to notice that those fleet-footed steps are getting heavier. At the start of a World Cup, where you are expected to peak every few days, it is natural to question the physical resources of a player who may go down as exceptional, but who is almost 34. And yet, how do you extinguish his threat, not only out of respect for his sublime skills and status as France captain, but given these will be his last hours in football?
The tributes from the footballing family these last few days give you an idea of the anticipation building. Marcello Lippi, his manager at Juventus, stated: “I think Zidane is the greatest talent we’ve known in football these last 20 years, yet he never played the prima donna. I am honoured to have been his manager.”
Long-term accomplice, Bixente Lizarazu, underlined: “Unlike certain big-name players, he was incredibly selfless. He has this knack for making his team-mates tick, getting the best out of them – I am living proof of that.”
Oddly enough, that has yet to apply in the case of Thierry Henry. Somehow the pair never quite gelled on the pitch for France, and I can’t recall a single decisive pass Zizou made for the Gunner. But Henry’s respect remains total. He said: “Now we are going to try and ensure Zizou goes out on a high. It’s the least we can do for a player like him. To think he’ll no longer be there for us to enjoy is such a shame, in fact it’s very sad.”
Paul Le Guen agrees, saying: “It’s always a shame when a really great player decides to call it a day. But he does seem quite relieved to have made it public.”
Zidane even answered the phone last week to find France president Jacques Chirac on the end of the line. Last September, a radio DJ prankster successfully imitated Chirac on the eve of the 1-0 defeat to Ireland in Dublin. He told Zidane and Domenech to put their hands on their hearts during the national anthem. They did as they were told. But this time, it was the real Chirac, who told him of his “admiration, as with all of France, for your career as a footballer, and for the values you embody”.
Any politician knows that, even in retirement, Zidane will remain a forceful personality, whose status goes well beyond that of a mere player. Opinion polls continue to place him as France’s favourite star. One who offered, in the space of a balmy summer eight years ago, the perfect illusion of a rainbow nation ready to integrate amid joy shared across generations of immigrant groupings. But as recent events underline, the illusion remains a long way from reality. Zidane’s father doesn’t even have the right to vote. Zidane never got embroiled in such disputes. Through timidity, a little; through fear of losing what he had gained, a bit more.
He was just always more comfortable on the pitch. The one he is about to leave behind.
Vincent Duluc,
chief football writer at l’Equipe
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The last games of Zinedine Zidane
IT’S a strange feeling having to remind yourself that Zinedine Zidane’s talent is not everlasting, and that he will no longer play football beyond this summer. It seems awfully soon to be thinking about savouring his last few matches, and even odder to be missing him before he has even got to Germany and his World Cup swansong. In making the announcement, on Tuesday, that he is to retire completely at the end of France’s tournament bid, a year before his contract expires at Real Madrid, Zidane brought forth a wave of nostalgia over his gifts – even before he has taken them off the game’s greatest stage. His exit lends drama, and no little intensity, to Les Bleus, who have long taken his genius for granted.
At the very most, he will have 13 games left to play – although that would mean France reaching the final in Berlin. Having gone public with his decision some six weeks short of the opening tie against Switzerland on June 13, Zidane has put to bed any professional dilemmas and can at least travel with an inner peace. In an improvement from Euro 2004 (at the end of which he briefly quit the inter national game, only to return halfway through qualifying for Germany), the question of his future won’t pollute the France camp either, since the answer is already known.
However, amid an ocean of tributes this week, Arsene Wenger emerged as one of the few to question the timing. After paying his own homage, the Arsenal manager and Champions League finalist said: “I saw him make his debut for Cannes, and it’s always sad to see the departure of a great player who has given so much pleasure for so many years. But I would have chosen a different way to break the news. I can’t help feeling it would have been better to do it after the World Cup.”
His sixth successive tournament finals with France will have the bittersweet taste of his last. The others all had their own individual flavour: a frustrating Euro 96, immediately following a car accident which left him decidedly shaky and in pain, where he was even forced to apply make-up to his face for the official team photograph to cover up the cuts and bruises; a home World Cup in 1998 which began with his being sent off and ended with his scoring twice in the 3-0 final triumph over Brazil; his finest hours in a simply magnificent Euro 2000; a 2002 World Cup ruined by injury, and with Euro 2004, the end of “la belle epoque” and the break-up of a team of friends.
Can he really be reborn, just before he hangs up his boots, in the space of a month and a half? The genius of Zidane, perhaps, lies in the ability to make people continue believing anything is possible.
That’s how Raymond Domenech, the current France manager, put it when Zidane returned to the national side after his sabbatical season last August in a 3-0 victory over the Ivory Coast. “This match certainly proved something to me,” an under-pressure Domenech said. “It reassured everyone. I never doubted the calibre of the players in our team, but sometimes, you could sense a certain apprehension. That fear was gone. No great exuberance, but did you see him take to the field? The others all follow him. That’s Zidane in a nutshell, he knows how to make his team-mates want to follow him.”
Later, Domenech would say of his captain: “I don’t need any lengthy debates with him, and he doesn’t need a thousand words in response. Boss or not, that’s not the issue with him. Zizou would put everyone at ease by saying ‘don’t worry, everything will work out fine’.”
Zidane’s story has been as easy to identify with as it has been popular. His childhood in the poor quarter of Marseille, his first training shoes with the great Raymond Kopa’s name etched onto them, the poster of Michel Platini in Juventus colours on his bedroom wall. And the games, never-ending, in the back lanes and on the stone playing fields of the old port city. He told me much later, in that droll way of his: “Give me grass, and studs, and I’ll show you beauty. But believe you me, on tarmac, and in trainers, I am much, much better … ”
There’s no arrogance in that statement. It’s simply not a part of Zidane’s make-up.
Discovered by Jean Varraud, a scout at Cannes with whom he retains a close bond of friendship, Zidane left his parents’ home at the age of 14 and made his top-league debut at 18, in May 1989. He received a Fr5000 (£500) bonus for the privilege, five times his weekly wage at the time. For his first goal, the club president, Alain Pedretti, gave him a car. The night before, he had met a dancer, Veronique. She is, today, his wife and the mother of their three sons.
That kind of seamless narrative seems to follow him around. He was transferred to Bordeaux, and made his debut for France in that city, in August 1994. Trailing 2-0 to the Czech Republic, Zidane came on as a substitute and struck a double. The Platini poster? He took over that jersey in the summer of 1996, settling into Gianluca Vialli’s old apartment, close to the main railway station, asking me to send him copies of l’Equipe and France Football magazine every week so he would feel less detached from home.
Having made Turin his home, it was to be a five-year idyll – save for two lost Champions League finals. But in 2001, he was transferred to Real for almost €70 million (£47m). He emerged from his innate shyness but not from his honest education, nor from his natural sense of values. The sum involved scandalised him, but he escaped from the madness surrounding him at the time and reached the pinnacle of a club footballer’s career one summer night in 2002, at Hampden Park.
After a volley with his left foot which defeated Bayer Leverkusen in the Glasgow rain and brought gasps from a crowd reared on the great Real victory of 1963, Zidane admitted: “Now, I feel satisfied.”
That night, David Beckham compared him to a ballerina for the sheer grace of his movement, control and passing. Unfortunately, the last dance approaches. And you would have to be blind not to notice that those fleet-footed steps are getting heavier. At the start of a World Cup, where you are expected to peak every few days, it is natural to question the physical resources of a player who may go down as exceptional, but who is almost 34. And yet, how do you extinguish his threat, not only out of respect for his sublime skills and status as France captain, but given these will be his last hours in football?
The tributes from the footballing family these last few days give you an idea of the anticipation building. Marcello Lippi, his manager at Juventus, stated: “I think Zidane is the greatest talent we’ve known in football these last 20 years, yet he never played the prima donna. I am honoured to have been his manager.”
Long-term accomplice, Bixente Lizarazu, underlined: “Unlike certain big-name players, he was incredibly selfless. He has this knack for making his team-mates tick, getting the best out of them – I am living proof of that.”
Oddly enough, that has yet to apply in the case of Thierry Henry. Somehow the pair never quite gelled on the pitch for France, and I can’t recall a single decisive pass Zizou made for the Gunner. But Henry’s respect remains total. He said: “Now we are going to try and ensure Zizou goes out on a high. It’s the least we can do for a player like him. To think he’ll no longer be there for us to enjoy is such a shame, in fact it’s very sad.”
Paul Le Guen agrees, saying: “It’s always a shame when a really great player decides to call it a day. But he does seem quite relieved to have made it public.”
Zidane even answered the phone last week to find France president Jacques Chirac on the end of the line. Last September, a radio DJ prankster successfully imitated Chirac on the eve of the 1-0 defeat to Ireland in Dublin. He told Zidane and Domenech to put their hands on their hearts during the national anthem. They did as they were told. But this time, it was the real Chirac, who told him of his “admiration, as with all of France, for your career as a footballer, and for the values you embody”.
Any politician knows that, even in retirement, Zidane will remain a forceful personality, whose status goes well beyond that of a mere player. Opinion polls continue to place him as France’s favourite star. One who offered, in the space of a balmy summer eight years ago, the perfect illusion of a rainbow nation ready to integrate amid joy shared across generations of immigrant groupings. But as recent events underline, the illusion remains a long way from reality. Zidane’s father doesn’t even have the right to vote. Zidane never got embroiled in such disputes. Through timidity, a little; through fear of losing what he had gained, a bit more.
He was just always more comfortable on the pitch. The one he is about to leave behind.
Vincent Duluc,
chief football writer at l’Equipe
And his time at Juventus was also one of the best for me. To see him play week in, week out live was to be in the presence of true genius.
He held us spell-bound in the Stadio dela Alpi like a Matador within the ring.
No matter who played all eyes were on him (even his team mates), waiting to see just what he would do next.
He held us spell-bound in the Stadio dela Alpi like a Matador within the ring.
No matter who played all eyes were on him (even his team mates), waiting to see just what he would do next.