Coach Zinédine Zidane leaves the Spanish soccer champions Real Madrid.

The club announced on Thursday.

“Zidane is one of the great Real Madrid myths and his legend goes beyond what he was as a coach and player for our club.

He knows that he is in the heart of Real Madrid and that Real Madrid is and always will be his home, ”the club wrote on its website.

The departure of the 48-year-old Frenchman, whose contract was actually still valid until the end of June 2022, had last been indicated. He is said to have told his players in mid-May before the last matchday that he would leave Real after this season. In doing so, he probably drew the conclusions from the fact that Los Blancos did not win a title for the first time in eleven years.

Real finished second in the Primera División championship behind local rivals Atlético Madrid.

In the Champions League, Zidane's team failed in the semi-finals at Chelsea FC with German coach Thomas Tuchel.

Then there was criticism of Zidane, who had become world champion with France in 1998 in his own country as a player.

Two years later, he led the Equipe Tricolore to the European title and, as in 1998, was FIFA World Player of the Year.

With Real, "Zizou"

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his nickname

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also celebrated his only premier class triumph as a professional: In the final against Bayer Leverkusen on May 15, 2002, Zidane scored the spectacular 2-1 winning goal.

The fact that Real Madrid were missing two points and three goals at Atlético for their La Liga triumph this time was bitter for the defending champions.

But the cup embarrassment was much worse: With a 1: 2 after extra time, the big favorite was eliminated in the third round in January at the third division club CD Alcoyano.

Zidane's departure also marks the end of a successful era at the Toni Kroos Club: the star coach, born in 1972 in Marseille, won the Champions League with Real three times in a row (2016, 2017, 2018).

He had already resigned surprisingly at the end of May 2018

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and returned in spring 2019.