What did the voice in the head said to Zidane?

Zinadine Zidane came out of international football retirement to help France qualify to the World Cup. Until his reappearance, French were heading nowhere in their qualifying group. Suddenly the magic of Zidane embraced the team and they made it to the finals in Germany.

In Germany, they were unimpressive in the first round, even with Zidane in their first two opening matches. Two yellow cards meant the French will have to play their final match against Togo without Zidane, needing a win to proceed further. They did it by winning 2-0 and all players dedicated that victory to their talisman Zidane.

You see, Zidane is the heartbeat of this French team. Defender Thuram says that whenever the French players don’t know what to do with the ball, the pass it to Zidane.

He has done it all before. In 1998, he was instrumental in winning the World Cup for France for the first time. His contribution was massive and he became a national hero after that.

Once again, Zidane started to show his class and worth to the French side. In the second round match against the high flying Spain, which France won 3-1, Zidane was back at his best, scoring a wonderful individual goal in the final minutes.

More was to come from the magician in the quarterfinal match against Brazil. No one gave France a chance but Zidane apparently had other thoughts. He single-handedly destroyed Brazil and sent them packing home. He was an absolute joy to watch in the midfield. All French passing went through him and he was so magnificent in his game that night. He was a ballet performer on a football pitch. (Video below)



Against Portugal in the semifinal, again Zidane was the focal point of the French team. He played his socks off in ensuring a victory for his team, courtesy of a well-taken penalty from him.

The final against Italy was to be his swansong. He is sure to retire and what a way it will be if he helps France lift the trophy again. No one thought France will be at this stage, let alone winning the World Cup, but Zidane likes to write his own script.

He almost did it superbly until the 111th minute of the final. He scored a cheeky penalty to give France the lead. It takes ultimate composure to dink the ball as he did in the penalty. If he had missed, he would have been ridiculed. But then, this is Zidane we are talking about. (See video)



He pushed his teammates to keep attacking, and when that failed, he himself took the lead, feeding the ball to Ribery and then finding himself at the end of the cross. And what a superb header from him that brought out a world class reflex safe from Buffon.

With about 15 minutes remaining in the extra period of the World Cup, you would have thought Zidane’s script will see him score a winning goal, failing which, he will still lead his teammates to score a penalty kick each and lift the trophy. After that he could go into retirement with all accolades pouring in for his genius.

However, I think for the first time in this tournament, Zidane misread the script. No one knows what went on in his head which led him to head butt the Italian defender.

He could have been provoked, which is usual in football and he should be used to that, but still he should not have lost his marbles to commit that ugly foul. It was a straight red card, no doubt.

So in the end, our memory of Zidane might just be the ramming of his head onto Materazzi’s chest although he was declared as the player of the tournament.

Why did he do it? Only he can tell us. When he emerged from his retirement, Zidane said that a voice in his head told him to start playing international football again. Last night, the voice betrayed him.

Below is a video of Zidane’s moment of madness.