Zinédine Zidane

Darius Khondji placed seventeen 35-millimeter film cameras around the Santiago Bernabéu pitch in April 2005. The goal was not to follow the match against Villarreal, but to capture the breathing, pauses, and tics of Zinédine Zidane.

No one filmed the ball.

That film, titled Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, grasped better than anyone the nature of this son of Algerian immigrants raised in Marseille's La Castellane neighborhood. Zidane never played to the gallery or sought the camera. His on-screen presence belonged to the silent film tradition, where every body gesture replaces unnecessary dialogue.

During his early years at Cannes and Girondins de Bordeaux, he polished a ball control that defied the physics of French pitches. In 1996, he joined Juventus of Turin for a sum that was laughable by modern standards. There he learned Italian tactical discipline under Marcello Lippi.

And the world discovered that this shy guy turned the physical violence of the game into a measured choreography.

The Glasgow volley and the Berlin tragedy

In the summer of 2001, Florentino Pérez paid 77.5 million euros for his transfer to Real Madrid, the most expensive signing of the era. The media pressure in the Spanish capital devoured anyone. But Zidane settled the debate in May 2002 with a volley at Hampden Park that gave the white club the European Cup. That ball fell from the Scottish sky, and his left leg met it without letting it touch the ground.

Success did not hide his silences. Behind his technical elegance lived a volcanic temperament that no coach ever fully managed to tame.

In July 2006, he played his last game as a professional footballer at Berlin's Olympiastadion. The World Cup final against Italy had all the drama imaginable. He scored a penalty with a delicate chip over Gianluigi Buffon in the seventh minute. In extra time, after a verbal clash with Marco Materazzi, he headbutted the Italian center back in the chest, which earned him a straight red card.

He walked past the golden trophy on his way to the locker room without looking at it.

Ese mismo año rechazó ofertas millonarias para estirar su carrera en ligas menores. Prefirió rodar un cameo cómico en la película Asterix at the Olympic Games antes que arrastrarse por campos lejanos. Se recluyó en Madrid con su familia y guardó un silencio casi litúrgico durante un lustro.

Three European Cups without raising his voice

In January 2016, Real Madrid fired Rafa Benítez and handed the reins of the first team to him. Few analysts trusted a rookie coach whose only previous experience was managing the reserve team on the muddy fields of Segunda División B.

And the gamble paid off.

His method relied on neither complicated tactics boards nor grandiose motivational speeches. He managed multimillion-dollar egos with the same calculated distance he showed as a player. In May 2018, he achieved an unprecedented feat by winning three consecutive Champions Leagues after beating Liverpool in Kiev. Five days later, he called the media to announce his voluntary resignation.

He returned to rescue the club in March 2019 after a chaotic year of white-shirt defeats. He won a league title in the middle of the 2020 lockdown with a depleted squad.

In May 2021, he definitively closed his chapter on the Santiago Bernabéu bench with a record of 263 matches managed and eleven official trophies. He left by publishing a letter of complaints aimed at the board in the newspaper AS and turned off his phone.