Zidane

Part Poet, Part Tyrant, Zidane Has Always Made Power Look Beautiful.

- Corley Miller

BEFORE ZIDANE there was a boy, kicking in the streets. “I always chose to be Platini. I let my friends share the names of my other idols between themselves,” he told Esquire. In 1980s Marseille, Zidane would have been far from the only petit-Platini, but he was the only one aiming too low. Platini had won a Champions League but never made the final of a World Cup; Zidane’s goals would decide both.

After retiring, Zinedine Zidane seemed again to be following Michel Platini—a period of well-tailored lurking in the director’s boxes at the Bernabéu, an embarrassing endorsement of Qatar’s bid to host the World Cup. A happy life of yachts and bribes awaited. But then he took a risk: He decided to become a manager, and under the brightest lights of all. Failure might disrupt his Platini project. Was he going to be any good at this?

There were occasions to doubt Zidane as a manager. Like in the second leg against Wolfsburg, in the Champions League quarterfinals, when he left James Rodríguez on the bench and started Casemiro. Florentino Pérez must have had a fit. Casemiro’s a kicky prohibitor, exactly the Makélélé type Pérez spent the noughts refusing to invest in. Never a galáctico. A player to steal a point in El clasico away, but not when Real were already down 2-0 on aggregate. Real needed a 2-0 to reach extra time, a three-goal win if André Schürrle or Julian Draxler made a single goal. A match for James, Jese, Isco—anyone but Casemiro.

Still, Zidane played Casemiro, as the