Zinedine Zidane is the hero Real Madrid need, and the one they deserve

The Kabyle

About 50 kilometers to the east of Algiers, the capital of the North African republic of Algeria, there lies an area called the Greater Kabylia. The people who inhabit the place, known as Kabyle, are an ethnic sub-group that represent the second largest individual group of the indigenous people that have called North Africa home from time immemorial - the Berbers. Since the 7^th century AD, they had been fighting a losing war with the invading Arabs of the East, and today their home, Greater Kabylia, has shrunk to a size no larger than Denmark (around 200 km by 100 km in dimension).

Many of them, affected at different points of time by the unyielding effects of imperial conquest by French, deportation and discrimination by various ruling parties, and the ruthless Arabization of their world, sought refuge in France – for them, this wholesale, inordinately difficult, migration meant choosing life, and relative freedom, over far less pleasant options.

Smail and Malika were two such Kabyle.

Having initially left their home village of village of Taguemoune and headed straight to Paris, they had gradually moved south to Marseille, the home away from home for any African immigrant seeking a life on the continent that had ravished them for centuries ... and settled in La Castellane, a neighbourhood in the 15th arrondissement of the grand port city that was initially built as council estates in the 1960s for refugees from the Algerian War of 1954-1962.

Dominated by immigrants, the place has always had a rough reputation, rough even for a city that is not exactly known for their commitment to peace, order and general politeness. It’s the kind of place that never leaves you.

Smail and Malika are a lot more well-to-do these days but still live less than ten minutes away, in a large house in the only slightly posher suburb of Les Pennes-Mirabeau. One of their four sons, Farid coaches a local team – Nouvelle Vague - and the family is involved in a variety of aspects of life in the suburb they made their life in.

Back in 2004, a young goalkeeper for Nouvelle Vague named Karim had been asked about his time playing under the mentorship of Farid and had driven home the point about just how rough the area really is–

'When you say you're from La Castellane people are usually afraid...

There was, though, a ‘but’’ to that statement. You see, Karim had not been interviewed not because of Farid, but because of the identity of the club’s President for life, Farid’s youngest brother – a man the family affectionately calls ‘Yazid’ – and the way his success has changed everything in La Castellane.

… they are afraid... but when you point out you play for a team led by Zidane, they suddenly show you respect.'

Zinedine ‘Yazid’ Zidane was, and is, after all an enduring icon in France... a man who, in a country still struggling internally with the utopian concept of immigration and the ugly reality of racism, had once got his face projected onto the Arc de Triomphe (along with the words, “Zizou We Love You”)... a war memorial that stands as the symbol of all that is good and right about Caucasian France.

His face had been on the structure that defined French nationalism... his unmistakably Kabyle face.

He was.. and is... after all, a man the French – not particularly known for their affection of sportsmen – unabashedly call ‘ un héros’...

A Hero

He was a hero to everyone. Forget the political and ideological ramifications of his success, he was just the most brilliant, and successful, footballer they had ever seen. He had won them the World Cup. He had led them to European Championship glory. He had then joined Real Madrid in what was then a record-breaking fee and won them the Champions League.

Florentino Perez could not stop singing his praises. He had once said that Zidane was his “most emblematic signing” (the ‘Galactico’, in other words). On another occasion he had said that Zidane had changed the history of the football club he said – starting off (in his debut season) with a glorious, jaw-dropping, swing of his left leg at Hampden Park:

… and followed it up with a series of footballing displays filled with impeccable control, those trademark spinning roulettes, stunning goals, and moments of magic that only he could produce. His football spoke for him... it was pure poetry; man and ball united in their shared pursuit of beauty – it was splendidly magnificent to witness.

Not that everything he did was pure and beautiful, it has to be said – he was subject to spells in which he was as destructive to others as he was to himself... as befitting a man whose soul was moulded by the streets of La Castellane, he was a mean ol’ bastard when the mood swept him.

Like the famous French singer-songwriter Jean-Louis Mura once said:

“Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer.”

For quite a few people, though, he was worse than a demon. He was what the in the language of the Berbers – Tamazit (Tamazight) – is known as ‘ cit cmata’...

A Villain

Roy Keane, through an illustrious career of kicking, smacking, and generally assaulting everything that moved got a total of 11 red cards. The equally distinguished Patrick Vieira, a man capable of a going through a red mist that would have made Keane grimace, got a total of 12.

How much, then, do you think the man many regarded to be the classiest footballer to ever grace a pitch, a man many consider to be elegance personified got?

14.

He got sent off 14 times in his illustrious career and almost all of them for dishing out pure, unadulterated violence as a means of retribution.

Zidane’s first coaches, at AS Cannes, had noticed this quickly – when it came to his race, and his family, the lad was always ready to put his fight first and think later. Although he kept it in check much better, that raw sensitivity would still rear its head when he turned professional.

Like Zidane himself once said, "If you look at the fourteen red cards I had in my career, twelve of them were a result of provocation. This isn't justification, this isn’t an excuse, but my passion, temper, and blood made me react.”

You see, the La Castellane in someone never really goes away.

All this, though, has been forgiven and forgotten by almost everyone concerned. In Marseille and in Madrid they loved the impetuous-desire-to-protect-honour that his sendings off often depicted. A french magazine once wrote “it is good to see our national hero is fallible” – making him somehow even more loveable (and hero-worship-able) in the process – while Florentino Perez always brushed aside any mention of his poster boy’s violent streak.

It wasn’t that then, that turned so many people off the cult of Zidane.

Zidane’s World Cup winning midfield partner, Emmanuel Petit, once said: “Zidane and myself, we’re different.We’ve got nothing to say to each other.”

“You can’t pretend you’re helping those who are in need when you’re serving the cause of the big bosses who are registering record profits without redistributing them.

“When you acquire a dimension like his, which is beyond reason, it’s good to state your own convictions from time to time. He’s become untouchable.”

As celebrated author, Phillipe Auclair commented on that statement–

“Quite true. But Zidane doesn’t do convictions. Convictions don’t do much for business. And business is something that Zidane cares a great deal about.”

Despite being the most famous Kabyle of them all, he’s never once stood up for his native people – who have been waging a civil war against the Algerian federal government since ‘92, and who (through 18 different Kabyle and Berber associations) once wrote to him seeking a word of support after the death of a young Kabyle student Guermah Massinissa sparked off a rebellion that was brutally crushed in a move that has come to be known as the Black Spring – where at least 126 Kabyles lost their lives.

'There are too many sharks around Zinedine,' once said his brother Nordine in an effort to explain his defeaning silence. 'There are too many people who want to use him for political ends.'

And so he said nothing.

Less than a year after the World Cup, with the Berber agitation still raging on, Zinedine Zidane finally set foot in Algeria for the first time – as the state guest of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the man who had ordered the brutal suppression of the Kabyle uprising five years earlier.

As ever, he said nothing about the agitation or the plight of his native ethnic peoples.

When Qatar won the lottery ticket that is the right to host the FIFA World Cup, he did say all the right things. – “Beyond the victory of Qatar, this is especially a victory for the Arab world and the Middle East.” The same Arab world that had almost extinguished the last embers of his indigenous culture, language, and customs. But then, as varied reports have been confirmed, he was paid to endorse the bid. a rather handsome sum of $15 million at that. Convictions don’t do much for business.

Very few people know this side of Zidane. This ugly – almost villainous – side of his has been hidden a layer of carefully prepared PR campaigns... and the sheer angelic beauty that was the sight of him with a ball at his feet.

He was ruthless, inscrutable, knew – as the say in the colloquial – which side of the bread was buttered, steered clear of sticking to any hardline political agenda that might hurt his image, and yet was the hero of the people, the face of the common man and the living embodiment of the dreams anyone could reach if achieve if they tried hard enough. He was, in other words, a winner. His armour may have been a bit sullied, and a touch dreary on the inside, but if he had lived in Arthurian times, he would what the great sage Merlin would have called in his native Welsh – a 'marchog'...

A Knight

During Rafael Benitez’s unhappy reign at Real Madrid, the players had given him a mocking nickname – “The no.10”. His absolute lack of playing experience won him absolutely no friends in the melting pot of egotistical superstar’s that is Los Blancos’ dressing room. When Zidane took over, though,... well, he was “ THE no. 10” wasn’t he?

No one illustrates that better than Cristiano Ronaldo himself. As the tale goes, Benitez had been trying to bring some semblance of sense into the Portuguese’s Roberto-Carlos-inspired-hit-it-100-times-it-will-go-in-twice-but-they’ll-look-so-good technique of freekick taking with a scientific analysis that indicated that Ronaldo should try a new technique of hitting the ball. In the midst of this meeting, Ronaldo got bored and just up and left – leaving his manager clutching at a sheaf of papers and talking to himself.

When Zidane first took charge as head coach, he went up to where Ronaldo was practising free-kicks and jokingly told him “let me show you how to do it”. In the free kick contest that ensued, Ronaldo scored 2 out of 10. Zidane scored 9. Instead of throwing a fit, or cursing everybody in sight, Ronaldo gave his new manager a piggyback ride – as a show of appreciation, and respect.

This was Zidane, you see. He wasn’t just going to tell you what to do, he was going to show you. And then do it better than anyone else could.

Having already coached a lot of these players individually (when he was assistant to Carlo Ancelotti in 2013-14), and commanding the natural respect that comes from being one of the true footballing greats of all time, he won over the dressing room in a heartbeat. And he recognised the one thing that mattered most for Madridistas, and for Perez:

“When you play with this shirt, everything is real: winning is fundamental at this club and the Champions League is the objective and it always will be”

So in his first year as head coach – appointed as a stop-gap replacement for a widely unpopular manager, and taking over a team in a relative slump – he went on and won the damn thing.

The White Knight had arrived and saved the day.

The ‘hero’ that Madrid need....

As a player, he had always abhorred the description of hs football as effortless and graceful, he felt it was an insult that all the effort, all the hard-work and the perspiration he put into his game went unnoticed. As emblematic of Real Madrid’s gung-ho attacking football policy as he was, he never forgot the vital importance of the defensive players – whether it be Didier Deschamps and Antonio Conte at Juventus, Deschamps, Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira at France, or Claude Makelele for Real Madrid (and France, of course). Unlike with politics, he’d never been shy about voicing his opinion on football, and when Madrid sold Makelele and brought in David Beckham, Zidane memorably commented:

“Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?”

Hell, when Zidane went on that inspired run of form that lifted France to the final of the ‘06 World Cup, the one teammate who was as important to the cause was the another they had coaxed out of retirement for one last fling – Makelele.

Zidane’s never forgotten that.

He’s used that appreciation of the defensive arts for Real Madrid’s benefit, playing Carlos Casemiro all the time (the Brazilian’s importance has already beautifully explained by the ever excellent Sunny Sagar) and his team have defended with a collective passion that has rarely been seen at the club. And because he’s Zidane, he’s gotten away with it without being reprimanded by the high command. He’s persuaded Cristiano Ronaldo to stick to the wings and maintain the team’s shape – and cross the ball more while he’s at it – and he’s coaxing the best out of not just his superstars but youngsters like Marco Asensio and Lucas Vazquez who have been absolutely splendid under him.

And he’s been around a long time now. The crunch derby against Atletico will mark Zidane’s 307^th game for Real Madri; 227 of them wearing the no.5 jersey, 80 of them wearing a suit.

Real Madrid need this knight in that dented white armour to continue at the helm. Regardless of the form of players, the injuries that have beset the squad, the inevitable dressing room squabbles – he’s taught this team how to win matches... he’s taught them how to win ugly.... and well, and he’s taught them how to keep on winning.

In those designer suits of his, he’s had a remarkable record. As a player he won 58% of the matches he’s played in... as a coach it’s a staggering 73%. Hell, he’s lost just 7% of the matches he’s managed. It’s been observed widely that in the calendar year 2017, his team have been poor, and yet he’s lost just 2 games in those three months of “poor” football. His team are in the semifinals of the Champions League, and they still lead La Liga (by two points, and with a game in hand), and look set to march to a title they’ve lifted just once in the past 8 years.

In fact, if they do win it, it’ll be their first in six years.

Yes, SIX.

… and the one they deserve

The politics of Kabyle, Arabs and French Caucasians are simply too large, too complex to unravel in an article here, but one needs a basic understanding of these to understand the many, at times paradoxical, facets to Zinedine Zidane’s psyche. Everything about this history has defined him and his playing career– his Kabyle heritage, his La Castellane upbringing, his French citizenship – and trying to merely understand him through the medium of football is not just superficial, but wrong.

There is much more to Zidane, much more to those intense eyes and that inscrutable face, much more to that beautiful footballer than meets the eye.

So when Florentino Perez decides to do what he always does, what he already shows signs of doing – and tries to sack the manager... when fans, armchair experts and newspaper pundits decry the “simple” tactics of one of the greatest playmakers of all time (a man who could read, interpret, direct, and win football games with the ease of a man doing a Sunday morning crossword, a man whose footballing intelligence is nigh unparalleled – but what would he know about ‘tactics’, eh?).... they should keep in mind one thing...

The man they are going up against has gone through a lot in life to get to where he is, and he is not used to losing any of his battles. He’s used to winning, by foul means or fair, by playing beautifully or doing what is absolutely, ruthlessly, necessary. He is Real Madrid – the very epitome of the club that has defined his professional career – as capable of elegance and grace as he is of base cruelty and dealing professionally with the ugly realities of life.

He is, in a word, (just like his club) a winner.

Perez’s greatest signing may just give him the biggest fight the construction magnate’s ever faced – and for that Real Madrid’s legacy may just be more grateful than you and I could ever assume today

He is not just Madrid’s White Knight, but also its Dark one... he is not just the hero that Real Madrid needs, he is also the one that it thoroughly deserves.