Totally Extra: Zinedine Zidane - is he all that?

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2:01The Athletic FC.

2:09Totally extra. Today, Zinedine Zidane. The best control since Joy Division. The most infamous buck since Samixalot. From his beginnings in Marseille, to the glory of his goal in Glasgow, to his blowout in Berlin, we salute Zizou and ask, he's an icon, but was he actually all that good? Totally Extra on Zizou.

2:43friday the 25th of september we've got a brand new totally extra for you featuring hey tom williams hello james richardson hey julian lorenz bonjour bonjour and hello from Amsterdam, Michael Cox. Hi, James. Hi, nice to see you all. This is the day that Zinedine Zidane debuts as France manager and we've gathered together for a very, very special look at the icon, perhaps the legend, the man who as one listener asked, was he all that? Yeah, big question for us. Big question for us. Here's another listener. Kjetil Duvernas says, yes, Cox is in the lineup. Don't gloss over Zinedine's bad and anonymous seasons.

3:34The most overrated player of all time. Wow, that's a big shout.

3:39Julien Laurens: Did Michael write this tweet himself? Like a burner account. It's true, Michael. You found yourself at the head of a kind of church of Zidane truthers. You're like the Greta Thunberg of Zidane non-believers. yeah I'll take that can I say some nice things about him at the start yeah I mean he was amazingly talented no question about that there was a period where he was the best player in the world around Euro 2000 international career I think pretty stellar showed up in Euros and World Cups and the goal he scored in the 2002 Champions League finals as good a goal as you'll see I think the issue for Zidane was just did he play consistently well over the course of a season and I think by and large, he didn't.

4:26So that is my issue with Zidane. I don't doubt that he looks great in a YouTube compilation of 10 minutes. He looks like the best player ever. But I think of all the players who are regarded as greats, he probably, if you were to rank every Zidane performance out of 10, which would obviously take you quite a long time, I expect it would be lower than for any other of the great players in history. That's my view on Zidane from the top. Surely that's got to be your next piece. I watched every Zinedine Zidane performance and rated it out of 10. It's the only way we'll know. Yeah.

4:59Julien Laurens: And they do the average and then we'll know, you know, and the average was 5.6 or something. Jules, as a Frenchman, is there an intangible quality about Zizou, what he represents that goes beyond what, say, non-French people might understand? What's your take? Yeah, I think so. But I also agree with Coxsey in the consistency of, you know, through his own career. some games in the Champions League bar that final in 0-2 the red cards I think 14 red cards for any players is far too many but for number 10 probably even more so there's clearly a lot of things that were not that great about him in his playing career but I still think that in terms of technical ability and pure technical ability and again Adel Tarapt had pure technical ability and Atempa Narva as well I'm not saying that this is just the the end all of you know be all and end all or whatever you say but I still think that he was pretty incredible on that level and and yeah I think a lot of the current players who who idolize him so much including his own players right now with France also grew up watching those highlight reels that Michael mentioned of 10 minutes where you see all the technical brilliance or genius even that he had and yeah if you just watch that it's pretty pretty impressive really But on what he also brought, what he meant to us, outside of even the performances that he could have had or the World Cup or the Euros and things like that, it's the whole story of immigrants' parents, you know, coming to France and him growing up in this super tough council estate in Marseille and then just making it to the top and being the most popular French figure, not just in sports, but in any kind of celebrities, really.

6:44Julien Laurens: and that is very special. And that's why I think we look at him also with different eyes. Speaking of eyes, I think one of the things about Zidane is that a bit like, for me, Bajo, there was always a slightly mystic kind of otherness to his eyes. For me, he was like the Dr. Spock of soccer. Dr. Spocker, perhaps. Do you know what I mean? He had that slightly from another dimension quality until he lost it and headbutted somebody. Yeah, I mean, I think that's been part of his appeal right from the beginning. there was something very inscrutable about Zidane and particularly at the beginning of his career when he just didn't talk very much you know he hated speaking to the media he's naturally very shy he's been very open about that you know multiple occasions you know he's talked about you know how sensitive he was as a child I mean his father Shmael worked as a security guard at the local casino supermarket and Zidane used to cry himself to sleep every night you know worrying about him being attacked by someone in the supermarket used to lie there waiting for the sound of his key in the lock uh when he went away to can and was was staying with a host family for 12 months he said that he cried himself to sleep every night there because he missed home so much so he is a quite a sensitive soul and i think people kind of picked up on that and i think that has just added to the the slightly reverential way in which people have tended to to talk about him as a footballer you know you think about the um the film that was made you know soundtrack by mogwai of zidane you know kind of stalking moodly around the burnabout for 90 minutes and then getting sent off right at the end there's no other footballer i don't think you can imagine a film like that being being made about um and i think it was that alliance of the the shyness and the inscrutability and this you know seemingly god-given talent that created this sense of mystique and then you add in these eruptions of violence like really dramatic uh and very unpleasant violence throughout his career as jewel says 14 red cards you know the headbutt on materazzi was very far from the first time he'd done something like that and i think that has added to the sort of the mystique and the aura that he has and it's an aura that remains intact the day when he was presented as as France head coach you had hordes of fans outside in the street outside the French football federation headquarters desperate for a glimpse or a selfie or whatever and Didier Deschamps for all the the esteem that he's held in in France he has never you know inspired that kind of feeling and very few people in football do but Zidane he does have that that aura.

9:30Churches of Zidane will be stepping through its wide doors a bit more fully very, very shortly. First of all, though, let's get our traditional, totally extra dip into the almanac.

9:43Currently 25th of September, 2026. What has this week in football brought us through the years? Well, taking you back to 22nd of September, 2005, Jonathan Woodgate became the very first person ever to do a Jonathan Woodgate, having signed for Real Madrid in 2004 but been unable to play for a full year due to injuries he finally made his Real Madrid debut was it worth the wait? Very much so, he scored an own goal, got sent off Well he needed to do something to change the course of the game and that was block from Woodgate and remember Jonathan Woodgate has already been booked, oh dear dear dear An own goal, two yellow cards.

10:27His long, long wait to play senior football has ended up with Jonathan Woodgate walking the plank. Remedio went on to win 3-1 against Atletico Bilbao. On the 25th of September, so this very day in 1999, it was the day of the blind Venetian. Here's Letizia, they let him have a go, no power on it whatsoever. But Taibbi has made a horrendous error. And Letizia has equalised for Southampton. Yep, that guy. Massimo Taibbi, who'd been an authentic goalkeeping phenomenon back in Italy, was signed by Manchester United where it didn't really work out too well. The defining image, the ball squirming between his legs in a 3-3 draw for Man United at Old Trafford against Southampton.

11:22Blind Venetian ran the headline. He'd been signed from Venezia. He only played once more for Manchester United. Do you know what the score was that day, Michael? I remember they got thrashed at Stamford Bridge. 5-0, indeed. 26th of September 1998, was Paulo Di Canio pushing referee Paul Alcock after receiving a red card? And Winterburn and Di Canio had nothing to do with it. And Dicanio has been sent off and has pushed on, flat from the referee. His career in English football could come to a very sudden end. Utterly ridiculous by Dicanio. And no reason to get involved in that whatsoever. And he pushed the referee over.

12:03And I believe his Premiership career might well be at an end. The punishment was harsh. An 11-match ban, a£10 ,000 fine and a move to West Ham where he would later stop play.

12:19Rather than... Where he would later stop play rather than attempting to score and was subsequently sainted for it. This was against Everton, of course. Anyway, that's a story for other totally extras. Today, we're all about this man. Zidane is like he has been touched by the angels in his bed when he was a kid, you know. and everything he does is successful.

12:54Julien Laurens: It was easy to play with. The quality of the ball, you feel like it's not a good ball, but he will look good because of the way that he will touch the ball. He is the greatest. Goodness gracious. You see that control there from Zidane? Oh, and that's a goal. Zidane. Zinedine Zidane with the header from the corner. France have scored first in the World Cup final and it's Zidane. Hopped into the penalty area towards Zidane. Fantastic. Real Madrid come alive with a breathtaking goal.

13:36Zinedine Zidane. Jules, tell us more about his journey.

13:41Julien Laurens: Yeah, I mean, he was born in Marseille, as we said earlier, grew up in La Castellane council estate, which is a really tough council estate in a city where they have a lot of issues. There's a lot of drug problems, including La Castellane. It's still the case now. It was very much the case 50 years ago when Zidane was growing up. obviously in there they have this it's changed a little bit because they've they've kind of I don't know what the word is regenerated or they're trying to change some stuff but when he was growing up you had those big towers and then in the middle this huge like square if you want of cement in the middle of you know so you would walk through to go from one tower to the other or going home whatever and that's where they used to play football all the time him and his mates big family I think four brothers one sister or two sisters from Algerian descent, like many, many others, you know, in France, whether it's in Marseille, Paris, Lyon or whatever, you know, any cities really.

14:42Julien Laurens: And football was key. What's interesting is that his dad smiled that Tom mentioned earlier, not really a football fan. The older brothers, you know, usually it can come from the older brothers and you go and play not that great at football either compared to the gift that Zidane got, obviously. He had a couple of cousins who were really, really good. Just joined the local team and I think very quickly they just saw he had a pretty incredible gift. And what is interesting is that Marseille, being the club in the city, obviously, never really... Not that they were not interested, but I don't think they really saw the talent straight away.

15:20Julien Laurens: And it's Ice Can just down the road, really, who spotted the pretty incredible talent that he had. For a long time, Zidane didn't want to go and leave home. the family didn't want him to leave but then eventually I think when he was 15 convinced mum and dad to let him go with the Elinor family which was the foster family where he stayed for one year arriving at Cannes before it was very obvious that he would make his debut for the first team very very young very quickly 16 years of age when he got his first team debut when did you first become aware of him Jules? I think I remember his first Panini album with Cannes so that would have been He had hair then.

16:00Julien Laurens: Yeah, he had hair, yeah. Although he lost it quite young. He had that patch, the ball patch there. But he still had a bit of the rest of the hair there. I mean, Can then went into trouble, bankruptcy, etc. Now they're trying to come back in the third division again. But it was a really good team at the time. Luis Fernandez was there towards the end of his career. But still, they had a player like Frank Dürich. They had David Bettoni, who was at the academy at Can with Zidane, became his best friend and they've been best friends since and they played together. Now he's his assistant coach. They were together in Madrid.

16:34Julien Laurens: They're together with France now. And Juan was a really decent team at the time over there and made his debut. And again, from I think very early on, you saw how technically certainly talented he was when he made his debut. And it was just a question of he would not stay there for too long because at some point one of the biggest clubs in France will poach him. But it would be where and when will he leave basically the cocoon that he had at Cannes. His first goal for Cannes is very much a Zidane goal and it's funny to see him afterwards with this kind of, at least up front, a lot of hair and doing a little bit of a dance as well, not something that we saw a great deal from him in his career.

17:13Dancing, it was Bordeaux who snapped him up. Tom? Yeah, just on that debut goal, he scored his debut goal against Nantes in 1991. He'd also made his senior debut against Nantes in 1989. And lining up in that Nantes team that afternoon were Didier Deschamps and Marcel Desailly. So you had one quarter of the team that would go on to win France's World Cup, first World Cup in 1998, all there on the pitch for Zidane's first ever senior appearance. Extraordinary, extraordinary. Bordeaux, anyway, was his next destination. In 1995, so the story goes, he could have made the move to what was then the Premiership with Blackburn.

17:57Although Jack Walker told Kenny Dalglish, why would you want to sign Zidane when you got Tim Sherwood? Has that story ever been verified? I think it's too good a story. People don't want to run the risk of it being found out not to be true. So, you know, right.

18:13Julien Laurens: I'm not sure about the Sherwood line, but certainly the fact that Blackburn were interested and that they had talked with Alain Migliassu, which was his historic agent, still his agent to this day now. So, I mean, I don't know what Zidane would have done at Blackburn and what would have happened for Blackburn for the premiership. But I think there were, no offense to Blackburn, especially how good they were at the time, but I think they were waiting for bigger offers, let's put it that way. Okay. And Barcelona wanted him too. Did they? Johan Cruyff was a big fan and was furious when he ended up going to Juventus because he was top of Cruyff's list.

18:50so he went to Juventus in the summer of 1996 following the Euros which is when he following the removal of Cantona from from the list of options became the kind of heart the number 10 for France for the first time it wasn't a great tournament am I right in thinking Jules that he was recovering from a car crash yeah at the time yeah he just had the car accident before

19:13Julien Laurens: the Euros. I don't think he was really fit to go to the Euros and play and France did quite well, you know, semi-finalists, lost to the Czech on penalties as well. Not that Zidane was great, but this was a team that Bilacov, then we would see two years later at the World Cup, was built around how strong defensively they were and how well organized and that was very much Emé Jacques' idea. 2000 is a little bit different because they got to a level like Coxie was saying earlier, outstanding level attacking-wise too. So Zidane was a little bit the jewel in what was a very, very robust team that was just made to defend and be very strong and hard to play against more than anything else.

19:57Julien Laurens: And then him and I guess somebody like Djokov were the ones trying to just bring a bit of magic and just of spark within this very solid team. So even if he'd been fair, I'm not sure if Euro 96 would have been his tournament where he would have really been the special touch. I mean, the story goes that Mr. Agnelli, obviously, who owned Juventus and just signed him, watching him at the Euros, said to one of the directors of the club, is that the guy that we spent all that money and that we signed? Is that the guy you told me was so special? Because there was nothing special about Zidane really at Euro 96.

20:34There was when he got Serie A though. Michael, you were a keen viewer of the Italian top division at the time. Was that when he first popped onto your radar? Yeah, the interesting thing about when he first went to Juventus is he spent, I think, half a season being deployed in, I guess what these days we'd consider the Andrea Pirlo role. He was played almost in front of the defence and it didn't work out at all. And it was only after quite a while that he got moved forward to that number 10 position. And of course, that's when his form improved and that's the player we think of him of. But I do think that says something interesting about Zidane as a player.

21:10I don't think he was a pure number 10. He was a pure number 10 in terms of his career, in terms of his technical ability, in terms of the fact he was bringing kind of magic. But I think he was always a little bit of a deeper player than that. I mean, at this time he was compared a lot to Platini, as in he's the new Platini. And Platini's goal-scoring record for Juventus was unbelievable. I mean, I think he scored basically one in two in the peak years of his career. Zidane would never really get to that level. I think he was a deeper player, someone who enjoyed dictating the tempo of the game a bit more than making a difference in the final third.

21:43So yeah, his first season with Juventus, it took a while to get going, but it was the second season really when he exploded into a top player and it helped, of course, that that second season was leading up to the 98 World Cup. Indeed so.

22:07At the first time, a chocolate in profondità, Oferto del Piero.

22:38final, which brought about one of the other kind of ha-ha vignettes of Zidane's career as he gets marked out of the game by Paul Lambert. Is that a fair summary of that game, Michael? Yeah, that's legit. It's certainly more provable than the Tim Sherwood story. Right. The following season, same again, they win the Scudetto, they get to the Champions League final, they lose. This time to Real Madrid. That was the summer of 98, but something better was awaiting for Zizou and all the people of France.

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25:00How big did that feel to you? What kind of occasion did that feel like to you as a young Frenchman?

25:05Julien Laurens: Yeah, it was huge. It was really big. I remember the day where it was announced that the World Cup had been awarded to France. We had a big thing at school where they were given like stickers and pins and everybody got really excited. And that probably was a good three years earlier. Probably had been here in 95, I would think, or something like that. And I think the anticipation was big. like every football club was trying to get tickets for some of the kids of their teams to go and watch a game whatever game I remember we got like a Serbia Germany sorry in Launce I think it was the club I was playing for got tickets for that so a lot like 50 of us travelled to Launce to go and see that we had a couple of games at the Stade de France as well it was amazing it was really really amazing because don't forget the World Cup before that 94 was obviously in the US and with the time difference I think a lot of people from my generation tried to watch it but again it was a bit more difficult some of the games were really late in the night etc etc so this was for a lot of us the first one that you could really really enjoy it because 94 France was not in there 1990 France were not in there either so for my generation it was really the first one 86 you would not remember so it was the one that got everybody so excited and you had a really good team so how central was Zidane to things yeah it was by then so we We said 96 was not really his time, I think, to shine, although he had an incredible debut in 94, first cap in Bordeaux.

26:32Julien Laurens: Again, the Czech comes on, scores two goals. That story started really, really well. After that, Jacquet was building this team under a lot of criticism, especially between 96 and the start of the 98 World Cup. L 'équipe were on a cruiser against Jacquet, not liking the defensive mindset that we mentioned earlier. Remember, I mean, Tom would obviously remember, but the famous headline when Jacquet announced the squad for the 1990 World Cup that had six extra players. And L 'Equipe's front page is, are we playing with 13 players? Because everybody was like, why are you not calling the 22 for the World Cup?

27:08Julien Laurens: Why did you have 26, 28, sorry, in the squad? So it was really toxic, the atmosphere between the media overall, but especially L 'Equipe and Jacquet and the whole of the French kind of staff and team. a lot of the players even to this day still haven't forgiven Lekib for that kind of campaign negative campaign leading into the World Cup so it was a bit of a weird atmosphere going into but everybody was pretty clear that okay defensively you could win the World Cup with that incredible defence and that back five of Barthez in goal Turama right back Lizarazu left back and then Blanc and Desailly I think went like 46 games unbeaten for example through their whole international career you just could not score against them you could not beat them but yet everybody knew that you need something a bit special from Zidane or again from a Jochef type to still take this team to winning the World Cup because he still felt at the start, despite being at home, despite having this great generation, he still felt a little bit far away to go and win it and beating all those great other teams.

28:08Was he already the symbol in terms of the kind of cross-cultural makeup of the squad, which was such a big deal at the time? Was he already the symbol of that?

28:17Julien Laurens: No, not yet. Not at the start of it. It's really the final that made it and the fact that they won it. At this time, it's very much, they're not a good team. Jacquet is a rubbish coach. They're not going to make it. You know, and at the time already with Le Pen and the extreme right and the Front National were just going stronger and stronger and stronger. A lot of people were just waiting for that team to fail. Let's be honest here. I mean, I'm sure Tom would agree, but at the time, it's very much the feeling where they're not going to do it. They're not going to make it. It's not going to be great.

28:48Julien Laurens: A few of the friendlies before had been really laborious. so they didn't really look that ready and I think there was a lot of people just waiting for them to fail to even go more after them. Yeah, I mean there was a headline or a comment in an L 'Equipe article that said something like expecting Eme Jacquet to lead this team to victory is like expecting to climb Everest in a pair of espadrilles. Yeah, I remember that. Wow. They were booed at times in some of those matches. I mean happily they had quite a kind group stage draw, you know, very quickly got people on board. But yeah, the prevailing mood going into the tournament wasn't, in terms of what the team was likely to achieve on the pitch, wasn't enormously optimistic.

29:33Michael, when did they become good then and how important was Zidane in that? Well, he had a funny tournament because in the second group game, he got sent off for stamping on a Saudi Arabia player. Oh, there's a yellow card coming up here and Zidane. It's Zidane and that is... is that red? The referee appears to be sending him off. Is that for the stamp with the right foot? What a sensation here. Zinazun Zidane, the star man of the host nation, coming off the pitch and and facing a suspension. He got a two-match ban, so he missed the last group game, which didn't matter too much because France were already short of top spot, I think, certainly already qualified.

30:28He missed the game against Paraguay when they really struggled to find a goal and eventually did so in Golden Goal. He came back for the quarterfinal against Italy and that is 0-0 in France, win on penalties. And I think that's quite an interesting game. Zidane wasn't great in that. He was marked very closely by, I think, Passato, certainly one of his event as teammates, and doesn't have a great impact. But I think that's, it's quite a kind of symbolic moment in this game because France have, you know, as Jules said, France, they'd won Euro 88, but they hadn't been at the last two World Cups. They didn't have really what you call the winning mentality, I think.

31:02I'd say it was almost like Spain going into 2008. They had such talent, but they never, you never thought of them as a winning side. And almost all the players of that generation say that when they went to Serie A, so it's not just Zidane, but Joachayev and Charam and Deschamps and Desailly, they kind of, yeah, they got this kind of winning mentality and they just got over the line. And I think it's possible that in previous World Cups, they wouldn't have beaten Italy in that game. And then you have the semi-final against Croatia where Zidane's pretty good, but obviously the hero is Teram because Teram scores the only two goals of his whole international career to take him from 1-0 down to 2-1-0.

31:38So it's really only the final when Zidane becomes the star. And I mean, he scores two goals in the final, I don't want to sound like I'm being ultra critical, but of course it's two headers from a corner, so it's not really like the classic Zidane that we'd see at Euro 2000. So by the end of the tournament I mean obviously he was the star because he won the final and he was, you know his image was on the Arc de Triomphe and all that, but I think probably the best performers for France in that tournament, probably Dessayen Thuram and Zidane was the one who kind of provided the big moments as he did have a habit of doing in big games throughout his career One of the one, and it's there.

32:17Zidane again. Well, would you believe that? Zinedine Zidane, two headers from corners, two goals for France, Brazil two down, and the World Cup just might be coming to a new country. two goals up and Zinedine Zidane well they can't say they weren't worn Brazil where was the marking?

32:55Jules how big is it to have your face on the Arc de Triomphe like how many people get that?

33:02Julien Laurens: Not many I mean I don't think since then in 2018 they might have done something a little bit similar it was different but this was and it was just not that it was the fact that it was like i don't know a million people in in the streets of paris and the rest of the country that we were you know me and my mates were there you were singing like zidane president it was just it was just crazy nothing that we've seen since probably near the end of the second world war it was that it was that big he felt that momentous really and And he was the figure, the face of it because of the two goals that he scored, obviously, in the final.

33:36Julien Laurens: He still thanked Jacquet for telling him, you know, the Brazilians can't mark, basically, on corners at pieces. They're all over the place. You know, go in the near post because that's where they are the most vulnerable. And then he did, and he scored the two goals. For somebody who was not good at all with his head, you know, it's not like if he'd been a quality kind of a Zamorano type of header of the ball. this is not his case at all so it was very special almost like he felt the destiny was just there you know the game was at the Stade de France not far and we said they're from Marseille but his dad what the family before Zidane was born lived in Paris the dad worked on the Saint-Denis Island which is next to where the Stade de France is at the Renault factory so again there was that sense of destiny of this is not far from where his dad moved from Algeria to France the first time to find some work, help kind of rebuilding the country after all, you know, all of that.

34:33Julien Laurens: And so I think a lot of people thought this is it. It was his destiny. It was meant to happen. It was written in the stars somewhere that this game, this final at that place would just be his. And he shouldn't have scored the second header because he was supposed to be on corners on that side of the pitch. And he was walking over to take the corner and Yore Djokovic said, no, no, no, come on, you've already scored one header. You're hot. Like, you know, let's get you back in the box. And Jochev takes the corner, Zidane runs in and scores between Roberto Carlos' legs. Obviously his future Real Madrid team mate.

35:05So yeah, just another little sign of destiny. If you had to choose a player to put it between the legs of, I'm going to say Roberto Carlos, or possibly Zico as well, you know, that classic kind of bendy Brazilian. Zambrota even more, yeah. Zambrota perhaps as well. Zidane anyway was named FIFA World Player of the Year later in 1998 and also won the Ballon d 'Or. And Jules, you were saying at this point, is it already that he's now kind of the most popular, not just footballer, but person, which for someone from his background with the situation at the time was pretty significant.

35:39Julien Laurens: Yeah, I think it was a game changer. I mean, again, not that it lasted long, but it's this kind of notion that you mentioned earlier, you know, the black-blomb country, that the country felt united for the first time in a very long time, that regardless of where you were coming from or your family was from or the colour of your skin or your religion or anything, we were actually all in this together. and they won this World Cup because of that unity that they had. First, it was very much a unity against the media, the French media and l 'équipe. And Jacquet was very clear of it's us against them.

36:10Julien Laurens: Basically, they don't believe in us. Let's show them. That was very much the mojo that they had. And then also very quickly, that kind of unity, that togetherness really of, again, people, all these 22 players from so many different backgrounds, really, which is beautiful to see a kind of mosaic of of all those kind of backgrounds and origins was great to see and showed everybody that you could if you work together wherever you come from you can succeed and that was special and he was very much the yeah the the figure the figure of that and rightly so and after that he was just everywhere for somebody so shine or you know like um to be on the front page of everything in the news everywhere sponsors starting like coming in for him uh to do photo shoot and everything which i don't think he was particularly comfortable with but hey he could not say no he couldn't he was the darling of the whole country craaky and presumably mikey went back to italy and juventus and then played brilliantly scored loads of goals after this is that right yeah i think his manager at the time carlo ancelotti described it as quote a bad 18 month period which is quite a long period between world cup 98 and uh and euro 2000 i mean to be fair he's it's a funny period of football this i think we get quite accustomed these days to players being consistent but there's quite a lot of the top players around at the moment that really did have one or two years that were completely you know they almost went off the radar i mean sometimes because of injury like ronaldo but you had you know alessandro del pierro almost felt like disappeared for a short period certainly as one of the you know the world's best players before returning the mid-2000s but Zidane I mean this wasn't injury for Zidane he really was just quite badly out of form I think he scored something like four goals in those two seasons between the tournaments not many assists either you can say that a player like Zidane shouldn't be judged in terms of goals and assists but he was playing relatively high at the pitch and Juventus really He had a couple of quite poor seasons.

38:13So yeah, this was, I mean, this for me encapsulates Zidane. He was great at Euro 2000. He'd won World Cup 98. But actually the period in between, he went really completely off the radar in terms of being one of the best players in the world. He just wasn't in that conversation really. Until he was again in 2000 when the Euros rolled around.

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40:39You're listening to the Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now we do four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at the Totally Show. OK, so Euro 2000, Jules. France by now the reigning world champions, of course. Would you regard this as peak Zidane, this tournament?

41:00Julien Laurens: Yeah, and I think this is the best French team we've ever seen, I think. Better than the Platini years and, you know, 82, 84, 86, those kind of three competitions in a row. I think better than the 2018 World Cup winning team with Deschamps and, you know, Pogba and Mbappe, all of that. because there was just, you still had that defensive solidity and again, you know, that continuity really of that very strong unit defensively. And then it's almost like something clicked within all those forwards in a way, or maybe they just got better, more mature, knew how to deal with a tournament like that a bit better.

41:38Julien Laurens: But like from Anelka to Henry to Stiljokov, who scored a wonderful goal against Spain, for example, at the tournament, to Zidane, obviously. It was just, it looked like they were all at their best, you know, collectively. And I think at times in 98 and in between also, and by the way, Jacquet had left, so it was, you know, it was Michel Lemaire, who was the assistant of Jacquet before, who was nowhere near as good, I think, as a coach overall than Jacquet. But this team was on autopilot in many ways. But it got to the point where maybe in 98 and before and a little bit after, there was still a case of who's the star here?

42:18Julien Laurens: Who's the leader? Thierry wanted to be the leader. Anelka was in and was out. Anelka had a great game against England, for example, in 1999. Wembley, outstanding. Did that make him the key player and the star here? Not really. Zidane Sten, Jochef was a very, and I don't think he would mind me saying, but a very selfish player. And yet he was never the star. And I think he suffered from that a little bit. So there was a lot of that. And he almost felt that at the Euros, they kind of left that behind and decided to all play together with each other, for each other, to make this wonderful kind of attacking symphony of really nice football that they did from start to finish, even if they rode their luck a little bit.

42:58Julien Laurens: Of course, at times, the final, potentially the semi-final as well, but I thought they were just outstanding in every department of the game.

43:17So many iconic games, as mentioned, mostly for France, although the Champions League final with Real Madrid is kind of important. Which games, which tournaments would you pick out, Michael and Tom? Would it be 2000 or was, for example, the quarterfinal against Brazil in 2006 or the game against England in 2004? Where do you see the hypothesis of Zizou? personally speaking I think the semi against Portugal in Euro 2000 is just I mean if you watch one of those compilations he just does so many incredible things not necessarily things that you know lead to goals but just he had this incredible way I mean the reason people love Zidane is not really what he did once he had the ball it's how he receives the ball his first touch is so good he could take it with the outside of the on the turn, move away from defenders.

44:19He just looked so, I mean, aesthetically brilliant in that game. I think the Brazil game in 2006, I think it's probably a bit more, I did watch that game a couple of years ago. It's probably a bit more inconsistent than I remember. But the Portugal game in Euro 2000, yeah, for me, that is peak Zidane. It's where he justifies the hype and, yeah, just does some brilliant, not quite showboating but just brilliant ways of receiving the ball so yeah that Portugal game for me

45:02That Brazil game Michael you made a really interesting you wrote about this match recently and you were talking about how frustrating a player to be alongside Zidane could be. Thierry Henry, who had herded his return, Zidane's return to the French team, because France had been in real trouble, in danger of not qualifying for the 2006 World Cup, the number of times that he could have slipped Henry through, the number of times he could have set Henry up and instead tries to do Zidane unsuccessfully, meant, according to you, that Henry found Zidane immensely frustrating to play with. Yeah, I mean, Jules might be able to speak a little bit more about their relationship.

45:46But I mean, this would be my major kind of technical criticism of Zidane is that compared to other great number 10s, I don't think he was a great passer. I don't think if you look at those compilations, I don't think you see the balls that, I don't know, Dennis Burkamp played or Kevin De Bruyne played or Rui Costa played. I think he was, I mean, I never thought he had a great partnership with any striker. So he only, him and Henry, obviously, their peaks pretty much coincided. They were part of great successes. But Zidane only ever assisted two goals for Henry. One is the free kick against Brazil in 2006.

46:19And the other is just a kind of quite straightforward pass against Denmark in Euro 2000 when Henry runs off the length of the pitch and scores. And I remember Zidane did produce a great assist later in his career at Real Madrid for, at the time, a young Spanish forward called Javier Portillo. And it was a brilliant, I can't remember quite what he did, but I think he turned away from a player and just played it with the outside of his boot. Afterwards, Portillo said something like, Zidane's actually really difficult to play with because he's so unpredictable and so difficult to read. And I thought, well, he meant it as a compliment, but I actually thought that was maybe the most interesting insight into, you know, maybe why Henry didn't have a great relationship with him.

46:59I can't really think of any player. I mean, maybe there's a couple of goals he sets up for Ronaldo at Real Madrid, but I just don't think he was a great provider of goals. Like I say, he was brilliant at receiving the ball. I mean, you could say the best player that there's been at receiving the ball, but what he actually did next with it, I think, was not on the level you would expect considering how revered he is. Thierry Henry said, what I'm going to say may sound over the top, but it's the truth. God exists and he has returned to the France team on the occasion of Zizou coming out of retirement.

47:30Was that Thierry being nice? How was the relationship between them, Joyce?

47:34Julien Laurens: I mean, that was Thierry being Thierry, really, with that quote. I think Thierry knew that they needed him, to be fair, because you said they were struggling. They were not going to qualify for the World Cup if Zidane, Michael Elie and Thuram had not come back. I mean, Dominic was in charge, which meant like a clown was in charge, really, let's be honest here. So it was a real struggle. The relationship is fascinating and we probably need another show. First of all, it's an ego thing. There's no doubt about that, for sure. Not so much in 98 because Thierry is still very young. But after that, Thierry feels like, from starting with the 2000 and forward, like, this should be my team.

48:15Julien Laurens: When Zidane, in a more understated way, was, you know, this is my team. There was often players moaning about the extra touch or extra touches from Zidane, to go back to Michael's point where there was always the next one when actually those were not really needed. And yeah, the fact that it's quite incredible when you think how many times they played with each other, which is a lot of time, that there was really only two assists with one of the greatest number 10, if we call it Zidane like that, and number 9 in their generation, really. So I find it really, really interesting that kind of dynamic between the two.

49:02Julien Laurens: It was a bit similar for the, you know, for the captaincy. I think in 06 at the World Cup, I think Henri has a massive case for being the captain, to be honest. And yet Zidane coming back, even if he doesn't speak to Dominic, they don't speak to each other. It can only be him. There's just nobody, you know, nobody else can have the armband. They didn't speak to each other. Dominic and Zidane, no. They went through the whole World Cup without saying a word to each other. It was, to be fair, to cover that World Cup of all the World Cups that I've fallen in the front of France with this was the in a way the best because it was just it was just crazy what was happening around the team at the time and Zidane and Dominic plus Thierry Henry kind of thing and but for me just to finish to go back quickly on what Coxie was saying about I think the Portugal game is right up there but I still think having been in that Frankfurt stadium to watch him against Brazil literally humiliating them pretty much every time.

50:01Julien Laurens: And yeah, not always to the benefit of the French team because there was, again, a few extra touches. It was beautiful. Probably still to this day, one of the best individual performances I've ever seen. And we talk about the Zidane YouTube compilations. And I think a key element of Zidane's appeal and legacy is that he was one of the first players to benefit from that kind of treatment because YouTube was brand new. You know, YouTube came into our lives in like the mid-naughties. And so when you went looking for footballer compilations, the ones that you would invariably find would be Zidane ones and Ronaldinho ones.

50:39And, you know, YouTube enabled footage of football to be kind of shared and created in a new way. And Zidane was perfect for that. And, you know, Coxie mentions the semifinal against Portugal at Euro 2000. I mean, that was one of Zidane's finest performances from start to finish. And I remember a specific YouTube compilation that was soundtracked by Zadok the Priest. It's this very grand piece of, you know, orchestral music. And there was something Zidane did at one point. He's running down the inside right channel and a ball is played in the air coming towards him from his left. And he leaps into the air, controls it on his chest.

51:24and the ball goes up into the air above his head and as it does so he kind of pirouettes keeping his eye fixed on the ball the whole time brings it down and then like puts in a cross that gets cleared or something um in like and you saw that in slow motion and I remember I think I was you know in my late teens at that point just being completely stunned by that and that was something that gave you a relationship with footballers that was you know that was slightly new and Zidane's specific characteristics, you know, as a guy who was famed, as we've said, more than I think any other player in the game for the quality of his first touch specifically, you know, the advent of the YouTube compilation for footballers was kind of perfect for him.

52:09Right. And for any first touch fetishes out there on the nascent YouTube, something, of course, iconic was that Champions League final against Bayer Leverkusen. Greatest Champions League goal of all time. Roberto Carlos, I think it is, down the left wing. It's Real Madrid against Bayer Leverkusen. The score is 1-1 at this point in Glasgow. And Roberto Carlos, is it fair to say that he hoofs the ball up in the general direction of the danger zone? And watching the ball drop from the Glaswegian sky is Zinedine Zidane. And only one thought in his mind. Solari that's a good ball for Roberto Carlos hooked into the penalty area towards Zidane fantastic Real Madrid come alive with a breathtaking goal scored by Zinedine Zidane

53:06Julien Laurens: I mean he says to this day and he's repeated it so many times that as soon as he hit that ball with a volley on his left foot so technically his weaker foot really as soon as the contact is made with the ball, he knows the ball goes in. And you see, I think you even see on his face, you know he's ready to celebrate and he's about to go and celebrate on a special night. Not that he knows at the time that this is the winning goal and that they go and win the Champions League, which obviously, as we said before, he's had a difficult relationship with the Champions League because there's finals where he went AWOL, didn't win it.

53:42Julien Laurens: But this was obviously a special moment. But yeah, for me, the greatest goal, okay, with a couple of PhD ones, but somewhere there, but yeah, outstanding. The level of, you know, the technical ability on a goal like this, it's just crazy silly. Michael, greatest Champions League goal of all time? Yeah, I think so, just because it's so unique. I mean, there won't, I can't think of how many times per game there'll be an opportunity to kind of get a dropping ball vertically out the sky on the edge of the box. You just won't see that goal scored again. It was incredible, like Jules says, with his weaker foot.

54:18And it's, I mean, this is probably stretching the point, but it's a goal he scores with his first touch. You know, that's what he's brilliant at meeting the ball. I mean, had he decided to bring that down, I don't think he was the type of player who would then cut inside and curl it into the far corner. But what he could do with his first touch was just unbelievable. I mean, I remember even going into that game, being a bit of a Zidane sceptic and saying, yeah he's never really played that well this season and then he scored that goal just before half time and you kind of have to hold your hands up and say yeah that's that's as good as it gets yeah it was unbelievable.

54:53I mean as the only Welshman on the panel I'm duty bound to mention the Gareth Bale overhead bicycle kick which is obviously right up there in terms of Champions League final goals but yeah I mean that Zidane was something very special about it I mean it It was such a difficult skill that there's almost something a bit ungainly about the body position he has to adopt in order to strike the ball. He kind of takes the shot almost at hip height, really has to contort himself to hit it. But the contact is so pure and it goes right into the top corner. So, yeah, difficult to pick holes in that one. If you watch the goalkeeper, I think Hans-Jog Butte, he's so surprised by it.

55:37He almost kind of just collapses. He doesn't really dive. He kind of moves across. And he's just like, yeah, I can't get anywhere close to that. It's just such a good goal to watch. And ironic, of course, that a French player should score a goal past a goalkeeper called Butte when the French word for goal is boot. Right. ironic too because a but would prove so significant in another game for Zinedine Zidane. Well, that goal came at the end of his very first campaign with Real Madrid. He stayed there until 2006 when, even though he still had a year left on his contract, he decided because he hadn't been playing the way that he wanted to for two years, in his words, it was time to retire, which is a pretty significant position to stay.

56:22I think it gives a bit of a window onto his own expectations of himself and his own single-mindedness. Now, as mentioned before, in the course of those final two years, he'd been coaxed out of retirement for the France national team. And thus it was that having retired from his club career that summer, he takes to the stage at the World Cup, knowing that once we reach the knockouts, each game could be his last as a professional footballer, which makes everything that happens there just so much more significant. The game against Brazil, the semi-final, and then, of course, the final, Tom. Obviously, the final begins with him scoring the Panenka penalty, which I'm convinced he basically messes up.

57:04I don't think anyone taking a Panenka penalty intends to hit the crossbar. If you're hitting the crossbar with your Panenka penalty, you have hit the ball too hard. But luckily for him, it bounces down just over the line and then bounces out, puts France ahead, Matarazzi. equalizes there's that incredible one-handed save by Jean-Louis Jibufon in extra time to turn Zidane's header over the crossbar and then there's the headbutt and like even now 20 years on I'd still struggle to get my head around the fact that that was the last thing he ever did on a football pitch and I think because of who he was and because of what he's achieved people found it quite easy to forgive him like in France that hasn't you know that hasn't tarnished his legacy in any way I don't think I mean there was obviously criticism and and you know uh shock at the time um but it was like for me I think you know it was an unforgivable thing like it was a really stupid way it was unforgivable yeah to end your to end your career like you know reacting to you know a kind of thuggish sense about like materazzi trying to get under your skin by butting him in the chest and it you know just an unfortunate way to bring his you know bring his career to an end.

58:46leaves the football stage with a red card in the World Cup final

58:54his ironic applause mean nothing because Zidane deserves it the finest player of the modern generation the captain of France and his final football match not his final international his final football match the man who had a chance to win this game with a header just before half-time in extra time. Does Matarazzi say something to him? They exchange words. And this is the moment as Zidane turns and bows out, quite literally, of one of the great football careers in disgrace.

59:30Julien Laurens: We were at the stage and I was covering the final for Le Parisien. And if you remember, it happened, you know, everybody I think was following the ball that had gone to the other side because France had lost the ball there where Zidane and Matarazzi still are. So you didn't, nobody, unless you were for some reason looking there and not falling the ball, it was difficult, but we knew something pretty serious had happened. We could see the fourth referee on the touchline between the two benches being very agitated. We saw Dominic on his face knowing what was coming and Zidane's body language was telling anyway.

1:00:10Julien Laurens: I agree with Tom in the sense that... It was the sideline monitor. I don't know. It was the first VAR. Exactly. You know, an official VAR that is unforgivable, unacceptable really for somebody like Zidane, for all the flaws he might have had and all those red cards and, you know, the one that we mentioned earlier in the 98 World Cup against Saudi Arabia when he stamps on an opponent for no reason, just because he felt that tackle was a little bit over the top. You know, you should not respond that way. Obviously, the very famous line in France from the Thierry Gillardy, who was the commentator of the final, very famous French voice in football, who is not with us anymore, but saying like, oh, not you Zinedine, not you, not now, kind of not at this time, not for your last ever game.

1:00:57Julien Laurens: You know, we all dreamt. I remember on the day of the final in Le Parisien and l 'équipe combined, there was something like 25 pages on that final. It was all, this is it. This cannot be different than Zidane winning the World Cup against the country that made him in many ways, Italy for his final ever game lifting the World Cup as the captain this is it, it could not be different and yet it could not have been more different than what happened and I remember him going on to Canal Plus to apologise to the whole country on television after what happened because there was a lot of heat still but yeah, in a way this is he added to the legend but also I think many felt it should have never happened that way.

1:01:38Right as you say, added to the legend it would have been iconic for him to win the World Cup and then retire against Italy. But that's probably the most famous single image of Zidane. For everything he did with the football, the headbutt on Matarazzi surely cements his iconic status, Michael. Yeah, I think so. And to a certain extent, I think he was probably happy with that. I think he went into this game, I think he treated it like it was his testimonial, honestly. To do a Panenka in the World Cup final, which, you know, I'm not against that kind of audacity but as Tom says to kind of just get it over the line and have to appeal to the lines when it was definitely over the line and then he obviously nearly wins the game with the header as Tom says and then he's like well you know I want to be the star and he gets himself sent off and he walks past the World Cup and it is an iconic image because he's not one of the great club players of all time but he is one of the great World Cup players of all time I don't think there's any doubt about that to win the final in 98 fantastic year but he was obviously a very shy guy but I think he was a bit of a he liked being the center of attention on a football pitch and he liked doing things that were not necessarily conducive to the success of the team in his general play I think you know in a way the taking too many touches and infuriating his teammates goes hand in hand with getting sent off for a moment of petulance and and leaving his teammates to fend for themselves it was yeah in a way quite a quite a fitting way to go and let's be honest He's not the first player who, you know, Maradona's kind of dark moments had to his character.

1:03:15And the same is true of Zidane.

1:03:17Julien Laurens: I'm still convinced to this day that if he doesn't get the centre of France, win that final. Whether it's on penalties, but he's there. Whether it's before penalties, then there's not much to go between the red card and the penalty shootout anyway. But I'm just convinced that this team reacts very differently for the shootout if he's there leading them than after what happened with that red card. So I still think to this day that in a way he cost us another World Cup. All right, Jules. You comfort yourself with that thought. And that's okay. Like, you know, he reacted the way he did. He sees it to this day.

1:03:51Julien Laurens: He's got no regrets about it. Not showing much remorse. Fair enough. You know, that's him in a way. I think this final and this World Cup 06 is very much him. For me, it sums up everything that we've just spoken about for an hour. all of that is very much within that 06 World Cup those seven games that he plays there this is Zidane's career in a nutshell and with that it was over and then the other career happened and to finish off let's touch on what came next for Zinedine Zidane

1:04:28what a remarkable thing Zinedine Zidane not the most communicative of players certainly vocally then turns out to be an absolute drop-dead legend as a manager at Real Madrid first of all with the B team and then taking over from Rafa Benitez for three seasons winning the Champions League in each one of them just extraordinary how good was he Michael or what was it that enabled him to be so successful with that side? Well I think first and foremost he had the authority of the players I think at Real Madrid, that is very, very important. It's something Benitez struggled with. He'd been there as the assistant manager.

1:05:08I think he was managing a generation of players who idolised him as a player. And I think first and foremost in that spell at Real Madrid, I think he broadly kept things simple. I think he did, you know, his mentor really as a manager was Ancelotti, who he played under at Juventus and then was assistant with at Real Madrid. And I think they had a similar philosophy. Make sure your best players are happy. Get them on the pitch at the same time. shape and structure and the precise tactics for every individual game is probably less of a consideration than the mood of the group and just making sure your best players are on the pitch but in fairness I think with managers sometimes we we just put them in categories and Zidane was put in the categories look he's quite laissez-faire he just wants the you know he just lets the players do it I think when he came back for his second spell he's actually a lot more interesting as manager he does some quite clever things he's the one who really I think unlocks Casemiro who previously was just a kind of Makalele figure.

1:06:00Actually, it turns out Casemiro is really good at pushing forward and crashing the box. He gets the best out of him. He was bringing Marcelo inside as we see a lot of fullbacks do these days. I don't think that's something Marcelo had done before but kind of worked with his skill set. So I think he developed as a coach. I think he was a different coach between his two spells at Real Madrid. I suspect, and we're jumping forward a bit, I suspect with France, he'll probably go back to being the first Zidane as the manager because that's what international football is all about. but I think he's probably a bit underappreciated as a manager.

1:06:29I mean, no team had retained the European Cup in the Champions League era. It was always a big question, can anyone do that? And then Zidane's Real Madrid do it three times in a row, the first time after he takes over a really failing team in, I think, November or something like that. So, yeah, I think he's probably unappreciated, probably because we don't look at him and say, this is Zidane's style, this is his innovation. He's not, you know, it's not like with Klopp. I was at the Amsterdam Arena last night. We watched a Jurgen Klopp team for the first time. We're like, where's the gig impressing?

1:07:00You probably can't do that with Zidane. But in terms of success, yeah, I think he's really, really impressive as a manager. Where are the headbutts? Give it time, Tom. Give it time. Yeah, they're coming. That would be spectacular. That would be. Jules, are you full of optimism for his France career?

1:07:19Julien Laurens: You have to be because it's him, because of the aura, because he's got... In L 'Equipe today, so we're recording on the morning of his first game against Turkey tonight, Vincent Deluc, who is probably the best football writer in France, had this great line as well, which is true and very obvious, I know, but he said, Zidane doesn't need to create a great team. He's got it already. This is a great squad. It's one of the greatest squad we've ever had in French football history. If you look at the attacking side, and okay, there's players missing, defensively, but once everybody will be fit in there, once you have Saliba and Anupa Meccano and then Olisse, Dembele and Mbappe and Cherki and all of that, this is an incredible squad.

1:08:04Julien Laurens: So he just has to make them tick and click and win, really. So there was a big debate yesterday in France about are we expecting tonight to play great football and this team to be fantastic and he's changed a lot of things from the Deschamps era already, which is good to see, I think. But I think he's, I agree with Michael. I think he's a great coach. I really do. I remember him telling me, I can't tell Luka Modric how to pass the ball. He knows that probably even better than me now. However, if I put Luka Modric in the best environment, in the best situation, I know I will get the best of Luka Modric.

1:08:39Julien Laurens: And that's all I need here to make my team win. And it's like, it's exactly the same with his French team. It was exactly the same with all of his Real Madrid players. Whether that's Mbappe on the left-hand side, like we would see against Turkey, and Dembele as a nine, Sheki a bit deeper in midfield. Whether it's something else, he would try a few things before I think getting the right setup. But you have to be excited. You have to be optimistic because again, I think he suits international football as a coach so much with his own quality and what he can do with his team. There you go. He was pretty special as a club manager.

1:09:10Will he be even more mirroring perhaps his playing career as a national team manager, Michael? The one thing to say is obviously got sent off in his last over game for France. He didn't serve that suspension. So really, he should have a three-game touchdown ban 20 years on. Red points. Justice should be done. Alrighty. Well, very possibly that game and many others have been played by the time you catch this listener. So we'll see how the optimism plays out for Zizou on the bench. Anything final you want to say about a player who may not be the greatest of all time, but is surely one of the all-time icons of the sport.

1:09:49Tom, Michael, Jules? I remember Jorge Valdano said something about Zidane when he was at Madrid and it was, no one has ever controlled a ball like Zidane does. And I think that is obviously the thing that he's most remembered for. But I think it also partly explains the esteem in which he's held by ex-players. You talk to players who played with Zidane, players who played against Zidane, anyone who came near him, and they are as reverential towards him as members of the public. It was something that just elevated him. And you think about, I don't know, the last 25, 30 years of top-level football, other players that are thought of in those terms, particularly associated with the quality of their first touch.

1:10:37Dennis Burkamp comes to mind as one, but there aren't all that many. and I think that, I think because there was something, there was something slightly magical about the way that he manipulated a football. I think that also explains why he's held in quite such high regard because he kind of spoke to something very intrinsic about, you know, about the sport and in a way that people were able to kind of engage with even if they didn't know all that much about football. You watch Zidane play football, even if you've never watched football before in your life, you can see that it's a beautiful thing.

1:11:10And I think that's a big part of his legacy as well.

1:11:14Julien Laurens: The fact that, I mean, one of the players texted me the other day and said, you know, Zidane has his own football boots. He's got his own Predator range, you know, Adidas Predators range. And this is the ultimate flex that your own coach has his own football boots when 80 % of the French team doesn't have their own football boots. And I think that in itself just shows you the kind of level we're talking about now. Whether he's one of the greatest of all time or not, whether there's highs and lows in his career and all of that. But this is the level we're talking. And I was saying the other day, Celine Dion, who I'm sure we all love, is back singing, you know, in Paris right now.

1:11:53Julien Laurens: And the whole country and the whole world lost the chisel about Celine Dion, you know, singing again, being in Paris. When Zidane plays his first game, manage his first game for France in Paris, we'll have Celine Dion and Zidane's first home game for France in Paris at the same time. And I think the whole city is going to explode. Wow. The Celine Dion of football. And then we'll get a YouTube compilation sidetracked, soundtracked by Celine Dion. And that will be just, you know, full circle. Tom, I'm waiting for it. It's your job now. I'm waiting for it. Let's make it happen. Wow. All right, Michael.

1:12:27Did you want to add anything to that? I think the thing for me with Zidane is one of the things we take for granted in football is there's club football and there's international football. And you can have a genuine debate about what matters more, about whether you want your club to win, your country to win. I think there was a time in football when, you know, international football was clearly above club football. I think now in terms of the standard, it's the other way around. I think Zidane was top five, probably, yeah. I mean, top 10, probably top five in terms of international footballers.

1:12:59He turned up at World Cups and European Championships. At club level, not so much. And I think, you know, it goes hand in hand with the fact he was a big game player. He showed up on the biggest stages. And I think he struggled throughout his career. So it's about how you, we've learned almost to measure things throughout a season more. We have unlimited number of stats available to judge that kind of thing. But I think even though it was only 20 years ago, it was a Dan Stock play-in, which judged really, we judged him on big games and international tournaments. and in that respect he was up there with the best of all time There you go Zinedine Zidane Interesting to see how the new chapter pans out for now many many thanks to Michael to Julianne and to Tom many thanks to producers Charlie and Jesse and you I hope you've enjoyed it we'll be back soon for now from all of us here it's au revoir You've been listening to the Totally Football Show part of the Athletic FC podcast network For more great podcasts just like this one, including The Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places.

1:14:08We're also at The Totally Football Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

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