ZIDANE MAKING HIS MARK AS A COACH JUST AS HE DID AS A PLAYER
MADRID: Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane surprised supporters ahead of the Madrid derby in April when he admitted he was not planning for next season because he was not sure if he would still be at the club.
It was not a threat or a show of false humility, it was just an example of how well the 44-year-old coach knows the club – no matter who you are, if you win nothing you will probably be fired.
Zidane’s Madrid drew the derby that day 1-1 and, with Barcelona playing later the same evening, it seemed Luis Enrique’s side would make up ground in the title race but they lost 2-0 away to Malaga.
Instead of dropping two points, Real Madrid had gained one and they went on to win the league. Zidane is still coy about his longterm future but, far from facing the sack, he ends the season on the brink of making history. No coach has lead the club to a League and Champions League double since 1958. He will also become the first coach to win the competition in modern format in back-to-back seasons if Real Madrid beat Juventus in Cardiff today.
The Madrid post remains the most demanding job in football – president Florentino Perez has gone through 11 coaches in his 13 years in charge across two spells – but Zidane is now looking like one of his greatest appointments.
If Perez is the most important man at Madrid for a coach to keep onside with, then Cristiano Ronaldo is not far behind him. The Portuguese forward also has only good things to say about Zidane, whose influence has helped him finish the season stronger than any of his previous campaigns in Spain.
“Zidane has directed the squad very intelligently,” Ronaldo said. “It is not an easy situation because all of the players want to play all the time.
“Zidane has been able to use everyone and that has been the key behind winning the league and reaching the Champions League final.”
Ronaldo was rested in 14 games this season and that careful rotation has included sitting out four away games during the run-in.
He has responded by scoring 14 goals in his last nine games. The relationship is excellent. “I am very happy with him,” Ronaldo added. “I admired him as a player and now even more so as a manager.”
The relationship is no doubt helped by Zidane knowing exactly what it is like to be the team’s talisman and the club’s most expensive player.
Zidane struggled to make an impact when he signed in 2001 for a then world record fee and was even booed by the notoriously hard-to-please Santiago Bernabeu crowd.
If he is looking for an omen ahead of today’s final he may find it in Real Madrid’s last Champions League final on British soil in 2002.
They played Bayer Leverkusen and came into the game having finished third in the league and suffered the ignominy of losing the Copa del Rey final 2-1 to Deportivo de la Coruna on the day of their centenary in their own stadium.
That made it more important than ever to win their ninth European Cup at Hampden Park.
Raul scored on nine minutes but Leverkusen levelled three minutes later through Lucio.
Then Zidane scored one of the most famous goals in the competition’s history, volleying Roberto Carlos’s cross past Hans-Joerg Butt in the Leverkusen goal.
This time someone else will have to provide the magic on the pitch, but Zidane can do his part from the technical area.
Having won the league, last year’s Champion League, the World Club Cup and the Spanish and European Super Cups, Zidane has proved his worth.
For all that, he knows he is only ever a bad season away from being replaced, but he is currently writing his name in the club’s record books as a coach just as he did as a player. – DPA