Between Zinedine Zidane and the French team, of which he could become the coach in place of Didier Deschamps after the 2026 World Cup, the story was not always pink. In 2004, after a failed euro that the Blues left in the quarter-finals on an embarrassing defeat against Greece (0-1), “Zizou” said Stop and announced, to everyone's surprise, his international retirement.
Number 10, then 32, is not the only one to leave the selection at that time. Three other 1998 world champions, Marcel Desailly, Bixente Lizarazu and Lilian Thuram, as well as Claude Makelele also hang up after their return from Portugal. Departures that coincide with the appointment of Raymond Domenech on the tricolor bench, to ensure the succession of Jacques Santini.
Domenech restores the truth for Zidane
For many, the new coach of the Blues is responsible for these pensions. A version that the former president of UNCATEF denies.
“Makelele is a friend. Even still now, we're going to eat together. And Thuram, the same, I spent hours chatting with him everything, of his foundation. We came out of the football frame. So never in life I haven't left them ”he confides to Unifoot TV.
“They are the ones who no longer wanted what they had experienced in 2004, all that had happened at Euro in Portugal, of all that he said. They had them fed up, they cut ”he continues. A cut that will have lasted less than a year, Zidane, Thuram and Makelele deciding in August 2005 to return to the French team to help him win his ticket for the 2026 World Cup.
“When they stopped, I got it on the phone”
To the delight of Domenech, who never wanted to turn the page with them. Especially with “ZZ”, who took the Blues to the final the following summer.
“When they stopped, I got it on the phone. We chatted with Thuram, with Makelele. With the three. I had discussed a long time. People do not know it, but I refused for a year to do their jubilee ”, he reveals.
“In each match there was, the president of the federation (Jean-Pierre Esclatlets, editor's note) said to me: 'It is still necessary to do their jubilee, it would be necessary to invite them'. But never life! I said, 'As long as I am alive, there will be no jubilee of the guys who left because they will come back'. I do everything to come back and Patrick Vieira was really an element ”concludes Domenech.
