Zidane learned football on a narrow Marseille plaza and conquered the world
Zinedine Zidane first played football at five on the Place Tartane, a concrete square roughly 80 yards by 12 in the Marseille housing estate of La Castellane. Two decades later he scored twice in the 1998 World Cup final, and as a coach he became the only manager to win three Champions Leagues in a row.
Born in 1972, he was the youngest of five children of Algerian parents from Kabylia who had moved to Paris in 1953 and later to northern Marseille. His father, a warehouseman and night-shift security guard, ran a strict home that Zidane calls the guiding light of his career, in a neighbourhood known for crime and unemployment. He says he is proud to be French and proud of his roots. He got his first player's licence at ten with the local club Saint-Henri, and at 14 a Cannes scout spotted him at a federation training camp in Aix-en-Provence.
After Cannes he starred at Bordeaux, then moved to Juventus in 1996, winning two Serie A titles and reaching the Champions League final in 1997 and again in 1998. Real Madrid bought him in 2001 for a then world-record €77.5 million, a fee unmatched for eight years. In the 2002 Champions League final his left-footed volley won the match and is rated among the finest goals ever scored.
For France he won 108 caps. The 1998 World Cup triumph made him a national hero and earned him the Legion of Honour, and he was player of the tournament at Euro 2000. At the 2006 World Cup he again won the Golden Ball, even though he was sent off in the final for headbutting Italy's Marco Materazzi. He was FIFA World Player of the Year three times and won the 1998 Ballon d'Or.
Coaching began at Real Madrid's reserve side. Promoted to the first team in 2016, he won the Champions League in each of his first three seasons, plus a league title, and was named FIFA's best men's coach in 2017. He left in 2018, came back in 2019 for another league crown, and departed in 2021. In 2026 he replaced Didier Deschamps in charge of France.
Source: Zinedine Zidane
