ZIZOU, OUR ARAB HERO
The Best of His Generation
By Rhodri Davies
Aug 2006

The world was waiting. A football messiah’s final ever game at the world’s greatest sporting spectacle. The French captain had taken on the burden of an aging team and transcendently lifted them from morose group-stage performances, to the final of the World Cup. The worldwide hero had written a perfect script, virtually single-handedly breaking-down Brazil in the quarterfinals and scoring a penalty in the semi against Portugal, thus securing their progression.

In the final, his mastery was on display when he chipped a seventh minute penalty onto the right-underside of the bar and behind the goal-line. The shot was the antithesis of his semi-final spot-kick – hit powerfully into the bottom left-hand corner – which Italian goalkeeper Giulani Buffon guessed he would replicate. In the two biggest matches a footballer could play he had risen to the intensity and made it his own, conveying how simple the game can be…if you’re good enough.

At 1-1 in extra-time, opportunities were diminishing for a dominant France to seize the prophetic winner. With 16 minutes to go, his powerful header was excellently tipped over the bar by Buffon. A country’s weight pulled a lot harder. Then Zinedine Zidane’s world fell apart. After having his shirt tugged by Italian defender, Marco Materazzi, the pair began walking back to the half way line. Then, inexplicably, Zidane turned and took four or so yards before head butting Materazzi in the chest. The red card was shown and Zidane left his team-mates with a one-man deficit, without a talisman or their most reliable penalty taker for the now inevitable penalty shoot-out, won by Italy’s perfect five.
 
Zidane’s glorious 18-year career was over, and shame would prevent him from reappearing to claim a loser’s medal with his squad. The aftermath saw the world speculate over what would provoke him into such an introspective action – did Materazzi insult his French-Algerian heritage, insult his mother or call him a terrorist? Zidane came out to say that his abuser said some “very serious things, very personal things,” concerning his mother and sister. In an interview on French TV station Canal Plus he continued, “I am a man and some words are harder to hear than actions. I reacted and of course it is not a gesture you should do. I want to apologise [but] I can't regret it because if I do it would be like admitting that he was right to say all that.” Materazzi refuted the idea that it was anything more than trash-talk.

Zidane had let down more than his team mates. After retiring from international football in 2004, he returned a year later to help a French team in need. In leading them to World Cup qualification, and then the final, he had lifted his nation from their doldrums of economic, social and ideological anxiety. They wanted more of what they had seen at the World Cup in France 1998 when Zidane, nicknamed Zizou, inspired victory and scored two goals to beat Brazil in the final. Then, his image was projected onto the Arc de Triomph (CHECK SPELLING), and the son of Algerian immigrants and a prize-winning child of the Marseille benlieue (council estates) symbolised a squad heralding from a multitude of ethnic minorities and a multicultural French society. As an egalitarian emblem, he was used by the French state and the media to great display. He united football and France.

As star of his generation, Zidane, 34, has achieved immense success as a footballer. After winning the World and European Cups for France, he became only the fourth player to attain over 100 caps for his country. His penalty in the 2006 final against Italy made him one of the top goal scorers in World Cup final matches, with three goals, tied for first place with Vava, Geoff Hurst and Pele. He is one of only four footballers to achieve the feat of scoring in two different World Cup finals. Rather than simply stepping up to the plate for pressure cooker situations, he says that he lives for them, commenting that he needs to “play intensely every day, to fight every match hard.” In Italy, he won two Scudettos with Juventus before being sold for a world record £46.5 million to Real Madrid. In his first season there he won the Champions League, scoring a spectacular volley to win the game 2-1, and a year later Spain’s top division La Liga. He was festooned with a mythical status.

Yet, despite earning over £10 million annually, Zidane did not project the temerity of the celebrity footballer lifestyle. His humility and admitted shyness made him the most reticent hero conceivable and he is the model of a family man, with three children. His solidity, vision, and control on the pitch, where he was a stabilising influence, endorsed this image. Born in Marseille, he has never forgotten his upbringing in a poor tower block of La Castellane, known mainly for its unemployment and high suicide rate, and it has formed his identity. He once said that his “desire never to stop fighting is something else I learnt in the place where I grew up.”

His bi-polar social identities of French-Algerian citizenships mean that he is adored in both countries and is a role model for the millions of North African and Algerian immigrants in France whose struggle with inner-city life is unrelenting. Zidane is deeply conscious of the existence these immigrants face. “I know that life in La Castellene and other cities is very tough. The sad thing is that people making political and financial decisions in France do not know the problems of people living in these areas,” he once commented. Zidane also attributes his successes to his background, “I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football, but also life.” He returns regularly to his community, runs a children’s charity there and has always supported it in issues concerning unequal development. However, he speaks from a secular liberal standpoint, overlooking the conservative religiosity of many Algerian immigrants in France.

His brother Nordine has noted the effects of his position, “Because of where he comes from, there is tremendous pressure on Zizou to be a role model. There are sharks all around him who will misrepresent his statements and actions for political ends.” A case in point being Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the right wing Front National who Zidane would later rally against. Le Pen duplicitously praised Zidane in 1998 as “a son of French Algeria,” implying that he was a colonial subject.

So what led this ambassador for so many to engage in an act of utter selfishness with just minutes left of an historic game? French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy described it as a “suicide” of a man “believed to be the only one who could avert his countrymen’s fated decline.” This “demi-god” was a “super-Achilles” who was humanised by a head-butt instead of a susceptible heel. Others saw a level of majesty in his deed, describing it as a gesture of tragic or existential revolt against the huge weight of expectation the world had propelled onto him. The editor of France Football magazine, Gerard Ernault, opined that Zidane might have acted unconsciously as a reaction to his impending retirement. “We could ask ourselves if he refused this consecration, this crown atop his head, by making suicidal gestures as a way also to reject his exit, his retirement,” he said.

Although this may be the French over-indulging in their penchant for philosophy, those such as Levy do have a point. Zidane aimed to be a winner and the best, hence his shouldering of a nation’s hardship and overwrought desire to achieve a final victory. However, unlike other footballers who court celebrity, self-promotion and perhaps a movement away from their origins to unbridled riches, Zidane desires to stay true to himself. He connects much of that with his immigrant heritage and council estate upbringing. This combusts, to some extent, with what many people, not least those in the media, want their celebrities to be – unattainable fabled individuals. Therefore, he can rebel because his family has been insulted or because self-consciously he wants to state that he is no demi-God remote from his genesis, but still a man outstanding in his profession, but close to his people and what made him.

Yet, filter his career down to the facts and you’ll see that Zidane has no exemplary disciplinary record. Sent off 14 times, he was dismissed in the 1998 World Cup after stamping on Saudi Arabia captain Fuad Amin and was banned for five-matches after head butting an opponent while playing for Juventus. He is one of only two players to be sent off during two different World Cups (the other player being Cameroon’s Rigobert Song) and he missed the closing game of France’s group-stage this year after receiving a booking in each of their previous two games. But growing up on the banlieue’s concrete playgrounds taught him that fouls and insults are met with instant reprisal. Thierry Henry said after July’s final, “You can take the man out of the rough neighbourhood, but you can’t take the rough neighbourhood out of the man.” Furthermore, talk to any Algerian and, if Materazzi did insult his mother or sister, they will tell you they understand his actions – these figures are the epitome of sacred in this country and throughout the region.

The reaction to his greatest indiscretion is mostly compassionate. For someone who has committed an attack, he has come off gaining greater sympathy than his victim. A poll conducted by Le Parisien newspaper in the days after the final showed that 62% had forgiven Zidane, and thought that he had been provoked into action. France’s President Jacques Chirac remembered Zidane for what he had done for the country and displaying “the greatest human qualities.” Although there was aversion toward the nature of the crime, including from Chirac, rumours that it may have been executed in response to a racial slur gave Zidane blemishes of support in the Arab world. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika even sent Zidane a letter of encouragement, expressing solidarity with him, in the name of the Algerian people. A shocked French press – “We were left speechless by such stupidity” (Figaro) – ultimately boosted public support for the beloved Zizou, and the sponsors have stuck to him. By expressing his human side, Zidane may have increased his popularity with the public and consequently marketers.

Ultimately Zidane is a hero for the right reasons, and thus the event will not dissipate a great career. After the game he was awarded the Golden Ball for best player in the World Cup. Subsequent arguments that this should be rescinded are myopic. The positives he has brought to football far outweigh the negatives. His social-cultural stand is nothing but admirable, embracing all sides of his identity as is suitable for effective multiculturalism. He once said, “Being Algerian, and proud of it does not mean that I am not French.” He is an iconic figure, regarded as representing family values, discretion, civility and labour. But Zidane is also a complex man whose temper has often created problems for him on the field. His final act was controversial, but if we were to disproportionately chastise someone like Zidane, what message does that give to children? He is no George Best, Diego Maradona or Eric Cantona whose transgressions either on or off the pitch set a far worse example to those who worshipped them. Zidane is all the more of a role model for showing that life is not all about glory, conveying humility both before and after his final incident. For that, he is less of a demi-god, but more a shinning example – one based in reality and compassion for the entire world to relate to.