He was Ballon d’Or 98 after giving the World Cup to the France team, then best player at Euro 2000 won by the Blues and star playmaker for the Real Madrid Galacticos. In 1996, however, ZinĂ©dine Zidane raised some questions about his ability to become a great player. After having exploded at the Girondins de Bordeaux, being voted best player in the championship in 1996, the attacking midfielder was recruited by Juventus at the age of 24.
However, “Zizou”, installed as playmaker for the Blues by Aimé Jacquet, failed to distinguish himself during Euro 96, surrounded by opposing defensive midfielders. The French team did not shine in the group stage (a laborious 3-1 victory against Bulgaria offered first place), then advanced to the quarter-finals against the Netherlands on penalties (0-0, 5 tab to 4) but fell in the semi-finals on penalties against the Czech Republic (0-0, 5 tab to 6). His first season with the Bianconeri was not very brilliant, with 7 goals and 10 assists in 44 matches on the clock.
David Bettoni, his assistant at Real Madrid from 2014 to 2021 – to win two La Liga and especially three Champions League in a row – remembers very well the Italian debut of Zinédine Zidane, his friend from the AS Cannes training center. Bettoni, a modest defensive midfielder, signed in Italy the same summer as “Yaz” (Yazid is Zidane’s middle name). Of Italian origin, he helped the Zidane family, as he recounts in an interview given to Raphaël Domenach for the media
Square.
Zidane physically scarred by his accident
“I am with him because there is the language, he also welcomes me while I settle into my new club. I am with him every day. Afterwards, he has a very close family and his best friend, I was with them a lot but, modestly, I did not accompany him to put him in the best conditions, it was a month or two. He suffered because he did not arrive in the best conditions after his injury before the Euro, in the car, and having a fairly average Euro all the same”explains Bettoni.
Zinédine Zidane was in fact the victim of a car accident in Bordeaux, just before the 1996 European Nations Championship. Hit in the head, with a burst eyebrow, he was hospitalized. The Girondins doctor declared him fit for sport, but the accident weakened his knee and thigh. The Blues playmaker thus played in the Euro “at 60, 70%”as the journalist remembers The Team Vincent Duluc, who interviewed him during the tournament in England.
