The Zidanes know what they owe to Alain Lepeu. It was he who allowed young Yazid to join the AS Cannes training center. The educator then officiated with the cadets of Septèmes-les-Vallons. “When I arrived in 1984, he was in junior school and I could already see that he was a boy with exceptional technical qualities. And this was confirmed when I took him under my wing. He had such ease with the ball, it looked like he had hands instead of feet.”he remembered in the columns of Dauphiné.
“If we are here, you have something to do with it”had also entrusted Smaïl Zidane to Alain Lepeu on the occasion of a portrait of Zizou’s father published in the columns of Provence. Alain Lepeu had to use all his powers of persuasion to convince Smaïl Zidane and his wife, Malika, to let their youngest son go. After reflection, the Zidane couple accepted, but on one condition: the one who was still only called Yazid had to live with a host family.
The separation was painful. For parents as well as for the young boy, who maintains a particularly strong relationship with his mother, in whom he sees “the other woman in his life with his wife”, as he explained in the columns of
The Team during a long interview on the occasion of his 50th birthday, in 2022. “I came to Cannes for a week and stayed there for six years”had told Zinedine Zidane about his Cannes adventure. Upon his arrival on the Côte d’Azur, the young playmaker was welcomed by Nicole and Jean-Claude Élineau in Pégomas, where he was pampered. When Smaïl Zidane visited his son, he was fully reassured and this separation was less and less painful for the Zidane couple.
Zinedine Zidane was going to meet his future wife there
A year later, Zinedine Zidane joined the Cannes young workers’ center, located near the station, and the young player would live there for four years. He made two significant encounters there: Véronique Lentisco-Fernandez, who would become his wife and the mother of his four children, and David Bettoni, with whom he would form an unwavering friendship, to the point of making him his most loyal assistant at Real Madrid.
But in Cannes, Zinedine Zidane would above all perfect his training and become the brilliant playmaker who would bring happiness to Bordeaux, Juventus Turin, Real Madrid and the Blues. “What was important was being in this training center. There were very good young people, very good trainers,” he explained, adding: “It felt like a family.” And when you’re 14, 15, 16 years old, it’s still important. I realize today that fortunately there were people who were more than trainers, more than coaches. They were people who paid attention to us first. » This was particularly the case of Jean Varraud, who initiated his arrival in Cannes and died in June 2006.
“It’s thanks to him that I was able to join this AS Cannes training center. He was the one who noticed me. However, at the time when he came to see me play, we cannot say that I had a good match. But he certainly saw something that many had not seen, he had whispered about her.
He was someone who meant a lot to me. I had my family, but he was like a second dad to me because he spoke to me like a son. »
