Real Madrid one suspects, exhausted him. They made him rich when they paid Juve £47 million for him and he is still, post-Abramovich, the world's most expensive player, but the expectations of the Bernabeu and the sensation of always being stretched on the rack of Real's marketing machine sapped the best from him in latter years.
No sooner had he arrived there than he was the star turn for a friendly in Egypt. Zidane's image was to drive Real's marketing campaign in Arab countries just as the acquisition of Beckham was to open up similar opportunities in Asia a couple of years later.
The later years at Real have been somewhat sad, playing in a team of overpaid galacticos who know everything about percentages and nothing about passion.
His finest moment in the white shirt was in the European Champions League final of 2002 and the exquisite second-half volley that beat Bayer Leverkusen: a goal only Zidane could have scored.
Regardless of what tomorrow night brings, his legend will be intact. What France achieved in 1998 was sufficient to ensure that. The follow-on two years later ensured Zidane would be remembered as one of the greatest players ever.
This summer in Germany, though, dragging an ailing, quarrelling team and a beaten-docket manager through their duties until they located some spark of joy, has been his coup de grâce.
On Wednesday there was curious resignation about Portugal once they conceded the penalty and saw who was going to take it. They remembered perhaps the game six years ago at the European Championship in Rotterdam, when Zidane had the last kick of the penalty shoot-out to send France through. Seeing who was walking up to take the kick, Luis Figo took off his jersey and began looking toward the dressing-room. When the chips are down, when every card has been dealt, there is nobody more reliable than Zidane.
Whatever about Cesar Maldini's wish, it is fair to say if Zidane were playing for Italy tomorrow night there would be no question as to the outcome. It is his heart beating beneath the French crest which offers his side a chance to achieve something truly extraordinary.
What a stroll into the sunset it would be. Perhaps the greatest final act the game has ever seen.
Zidane's dark features, his furrowed brow and his sly smile will be missed. He has been the face of Adidas, of Lego, of Christian Dior, of Unicef, and of France's anti-racism campaign.
But he has also just been the face of excellence, the face of quiet perspective in a football world gone crazy. The sheer beauty of his football has unknotted the ugliest hearts. The humility of his personality has been a lesson to every kid.
He once answered yes to a question as to whether or not he thought he was at the peak of his art. Immediately he apologised. It wasn't art, it was a game - and it wasn't for him to say. Only Zidane.
When the 1998 World Cup final was held in Saint-Denis, Smail and Malika and Zizou's brothers and sisters stayed behind in Marseille.
They went to La Castellane to be with friends and to babysit Zizou's two sons (he now has four boys).
"Too nervous to watch," they said, and indeed they were. Smail sat on the grass dangling his six-month-old grandson on his knee and bulletins came to him from indoors of his youngest son's exploits.
The immigrant who lived in a one-room flat in the old Saint-Denis sat and cried.
Everyone comes from somewhere but some journeys are more sentimental than others.
© The Irish Times
Originally Posted by jebus
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