I grew up with Zidane and Ronaldo. I've seen players after him.
Today we see a pass by Pjanic, and its called brilliance. We see a stepover and exit other side by Messi, and its genius. Ridiculous.
Zidane defined brilliance. Watching Zidane makes you call Pjanic pass 'nice vision' and messi's dribbel, 'somewhat predictable'. Zidane did things not a single human would have come up with at that point of time, and executed to perfection.
His ballcontroll was the best in history. There hasnt been a single player who could completely wrongfoot an entire 90ties calcio defence like zidane, with just a controll.
Not a single player i've seen who would do one time passes of the extravaganza he did, to perfection
Pirlo has these lovely long balls. Zidane gave long balls without looking at the player, one timed, while turning his marker the wrong way
Zidane is the player who defined new ways of feinting and dribbeling past his opponents, always with a clear goal to end up in a MUCH more dangerous position.
Juve had insane stacked teams in 97 and 98. ANd we blame zidane for not showing up. All that insane talent, but zidane not beeing top, and it didnt work.
Usually such legendary brilliance players are inconsistant. But zidane was by far and away the most consistant of all. Licking his wounds from the lost CL finals, he grew into learning to shine when the opponent was setup up to mark him all over the place.
Imagine Zidane in a modern era team. A balanced team, that accomplished him.
No. You havent seen Zidane(entire career), or Ronaldo (peak career), if you talk about modern players beeing superior. CR7 and Messi are special too. Against considerably inferior opponents