Zidane,
Zinedine
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Zidane,
Zinedine
Born 23 June 1972, to an
immigrant proletarian Algerian family in Marseilles, Zidane (or "Zizou"
as he is affectionately known to the French public) has risen to become
not only the most important French footballer of the 1990s, but also
a totemic cultural icon. Zidane was the man of the 1998 Coupe de
Monde, scoring two magnificent goals in Les Bleus' 3-0 demolition
of the Brazilians in the World Cup Final. That year he was also voted
French Sportsman of the Year, FIFA World Player of the Year and European
Footballer of the Year. All that in a Summer during which he'd already
hauled his club team, Juventus of Turin, to their second successive
Serie A Championship.
Zidane is, without any question,
one of the most talented footballers of the last thirty years. He is
physically strong, oddly graceful -- with a bizarrely balletic lumbering
gait, and a deceptive change of pace and direction --, and blessed with
a heady combination of a masterful footballing intelligence and prodigious
gifts of imagination and intuition. Zidane's ability to read the game,
and to telegraph pinpoint passes to the feet of team-mates, is legendary.
The analytical verve and strange soulflulness of his game is amplified
in its effect by his striking physical appearance: a tall, hard man,
Zidane bears a marked resemblance to Mr. Spock of Star Trek, with his
dark, steely eyebrows and impassive demeanour painting a picture of
logical rigour and hidden inner depths. In addition, Zidane's "deceptive
baldness" (Simon Hooper, 1998), whereby he appears standardly tonsured
from the front, but is revealed, from the elevated perspective of the
watching fan, or TV camera, to be in possession of a capacious bald
patch, lends him something of the demeanour of a medieval monk. Thus,
Zidane's physical instantiation of the odd archetypes of Dark Age Holy
Man, Vulcan, Divine, and 23rd Century Scientist creates a heady impression
of a man of strange learning, deep thought, powerful intellect, strong
will and great skill.
Zidane's cultural (as opposed
to purely footballing) significance is tied to his origins. He was born
in the deprived and despised Marseilles housing projects which are home
to so many of southern France's large Arab population. With the seemingly
inexorable rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National in the
1970s and 80s, especially on France's Mediterranean coast, Zidane had
to grow up as a member of a marginalised and distrusted group. Yet,
throughout the Spring months of 1998, Marseilles was dominated by an
enormous poster of Zidane, towering over the Vieux Port, and
proclaiming the stirring message that 'La Victoire est en Nous'.
Better still, within hours of the World Cup victory (on Bastille Day,
no less), Zidane had the chance to see over a million people gathered
on the Champs-Elysées, all chanting his name in delirious
unison.
The role of Zidane was just
part of the role played by the splendidly multi-ethnic French team in
exploding traditional notions of Frenchness, and delivering an inclusive
bliss-hit to late millennial France as well as a smashing blow to the
politics of exclusion, fascism and
reaction. In addition to the Algerian-French Zidane, the team could
boast an Armenian Youri Djorkaeff, the battling West African Patrick
Vieira, the commanding presence of Marcel Desailly at centre-back, and,
in Lilian Thuram, a powerful French African who saved his nation's footballing
hopes more than once, from right-back, with a set of wonderfully struck
goals. France had, in addition, two Black strikers in Thierry Henry
and David Trezeguet, a talented Black attacking midfield player, Christian
Karembeu, and a Basque left-back, Biexente Lizarazu -- and even captain
Didier Deschamps is half Savoyard. When this phenomenal band of Frenchmen
won the greatest sporting event in the world on home soil, the little-France
mentality of Le Pen and his ilk was savaged by a rampant wolf of ebullient
footballing energy, producing a joyous national pride that owed nothing
to the hate-filled fantasies of the Right, and everything to a cosmopolitan
nationalism of the Left. It is no coincidence -- no coincidence at all
-- that the triumph of these Mestizo-Frenchman took place just in advance
of the satisfying implosion of the Front National, and the disastrous
decline of the political fortunes of Le Pen himself.
Some Comrades Turtle (O'Neill
and Sandbrook among them) found themselves,
in that magic Summer of 1998, in the town of Montpelier in southern
France. They write:
"We were playing football
on the dusty pitch of a predominantly Arab housing project on the
outskirts of the town with a group of delightfully skillful young
kids. (Indeed, so skillful was one of these young lads, that he managed
to score a goal from a corner, with his the inside of his left foot,
having stepped over the ball and then spun around, sending it careering
off with enough spin to bend it into the back of the net -- undoubtedly
the finest footballing feat we'd ever seen). In our broken French,
we discussed football with them (the level was basically "Quel
bout!" and "J'adore Cantona"), and every
one of them said he loved Zidane (and Djorkaeff), and that one day
they, like he, would play for their country -- for France. Their little
sisters, playing close by, all had their faces painted in the blue,
white and red of the French tricolour, with the letters Z-Z scrawled
on their foreheads and cheeks in mark of respect to their hero."
These young Europeans, living
on the edge of a Mediterranean which has been the medium for fruitful
trade, communication and exchange between Europe and North Africa for
millennia, had found themselves finally pulled into a vision of Frenchness,
and delivered of real hope for the liberty, equality and solidarity
which that vision -- at its best -- promises. And all this had been
accomplished through the alchemical offices of a young but wise Leonard
Nimoy-lookalike, a proud Algerian-Frenchman, a visionary footballing
master, who had once lived just as they did.
Our moral: Vive la Revolution!
Vive Egalité! Vive Zizou! Allez les Bleus!
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