This art of the opposite, the icon of French football has maintained throughout his two careers, on the ground as on the sidelines.

The press imagined him lately at Paris SG, star coach among the stars?

The Marseillais let it be said and instructed Alain Migliaccio, his adviser for 30 years, to deny any contact.

"That's what I'm atypical about: I don't have a career plan," Zidane told AFP in 2020. "I just have desires, I just have the same pleasure in training today than when I was a player. And when it doesn't go well, or it has to be done differently, I will do otherwise."

Because the 1998 Ballon d'Or has not ceased, all his life, to dribble the paths all traced.

Twice, "Zizou" left the Real bench when the people of Madrid least expected it: in full glory at the end of May 2018, just a few days after a third consecutive coronation in the Champions League (2016-2018), unprecedented feat for a coach.

Then again in the spring of 2021, after another two-year term, successful but not free from criticism.

Zinédine Zidane's famous headbutt on the Italian Marco Materazzi in the final of the 2006 World Cup on July 9, 2006 at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin JOHN MACDOUGALL AFP / Archives

Coup de theater and whim

This disconcerting side is the characteristic of an immense talent who, on the ground, has always confused opponents and spectators, as much by his feline gestures as by his choices.

Like when, after retiring from international football in 2004, Zidane suddenly returned to the France team in 2005, to lead the Blues to the final of the 2006 World Cup against Italy.

This twist ended with a whim on the Italian Marco Materazzi in mondovision and a red card to strangely end his playing career.

In his second life, Zidane could have comfortably enjoyed his fame and his advertising partnerships, alongside his wife Véronique.

PEDRO UGARTE AFP/Archives

But "Zizou" wanted to train, study, earn by merit what he was offered by notoriety.

He therefore studied in Limoges, France, obtained his diploma in sports management, and passed those of coach.

"I left school very early, I had to prepare myself," he confided.

Based in Madrid where his four sons successively wore the colors of Real after him, the Marseillais occupied all the positions within the "White House": adviser to the president, sports director, assistant coach, reserve coach, until to sit in January 2016 on the bench of the first team with the success that we know.

"Flame"

Who could have predicted such a fate seeing the young "Yazid", as his relatives call him, touching his first balloons at the foot of the buildings of La Castellane, a city in Marseille originally occupied by dockers and repatriated from Algeria? ?

The life of this reserved boy with sharp eyes, from a family of five children whose parents were from Kabylia, changed dramatically on the evening of July 12, 1998, when two headers carried the French team to the roof of the world (3-0 against Brazil).

At 26, "Zizou" became the idol of a jubilant crowd on the Champs-Elysées, the standard-bearer of the triumphant "black-white-beur" generation, whose euphoria was extended two years later by a coronation at Euro-2000.

In 2001, the "divine bald" joined what would become "the club of (his) life", Real Madrid, already recruited by President Florentino Pérez, to whom he offered the C1 2002 with a memorable volley of his "bad" foot, the left.

The beginning of "a beautiful and eternal love story", in the words of Pérez to AFP, extended in the role of coach where Zidane reveals a real potential as a leader of men, especially with the touchy Cristiano Ronaldo, and an incomparable aura.

Silent player in front of the microphones, "Coach Zizou" becomes an ace of communication, with mysterious smiles and ready-made phrases.

"He understands the players perfectly. He's one of the best coaches, that's for sure," Luka Modric, Ballon d'Or 2018, told AFP.

Zinédine Zidane and his wife Véronique Zidane in the gallery of the Suzanne-Lenglen court on May 27, 2022 in Paris Anne-Christine POUJOULAT AFP / Archives

What will its future look like?

"ZZ" assured Sunday in the Téléfoot program on TF1 to have "always this flame" for football, his "passion", without specifying where he planned to train.

Perhaps because the sequel seems written: Zidane dreams of taking the reins of the France team after Didier Deschamps.

"It will happen naturally," he said, confident in his exceptional destiny.

© 2022 AFP