Zinedine Zidane will be a major club manager soon. It might be for the 2014-15 season, if not the 2015-16 season, but the man known as Zizou will get a job, a major club one. Nothing will matter until he gets that job, and then he will be judged on how he does in that job. Whenever he gets it, it will be one of the underrated stories of the European Club Season that year. Zidane's made his expectations known. He wants a major club job, and his name and his skill and legend as a player deserves it. But he doesn't want to be the next Diego Maradona, the brilliant player but forgotten, oft-criticized Argentina National Team Manager No, Zidane wants to be a good manager, and that might be the best part of all.
Right now, Zidane is the right-hand man of Carlo Ancelottia at Real Madrid. His claim to fame in his coaching career at Madrid is working with youth players, and convincing The Madridistas to keep guys like Jese and Isco. In the past year, as he's graduated from a nominal title at Real Madrid to a real Assistant Manager Job, seated right beside two-time Champions League winner Carlo Ancelotti, Zidane has made it known that he wants a manager job. In a way, there is an interesting race to who will get him, but more than that, how good will he be.
Wayne Gretzky was the Coach of the Phoenix Coyotes for a few years. He's a pretty good comp to Zidane. Like Gretzky, Zidane scored some outrageous goals, especially in big matches. Like Gretzky, despite the big goals he scored, Zidane's best characterstic was his playmaking, his passing, his ability as Juventus's, Real Madrid's, and France's nucleus. Gretzky failed as a coach. Will Zidane?
Great Players have rarely succeeded as coaches. A lot of people look to the 'Bacteria of Brilliance' that has inflicted these great players. Gretzky could see things the normal hockey player could not. That is how you end up with more assits than anyone else has goals plus assists (other than Messier, who had to play to roughly 47 to break that mark). Gretzky saw things the normal hockey player couldn't, so when he was coaching mere mortals, he probably wondered why they couldn't see those things. They couldn't because they were human. Gretzky wasn't.
Zidane wasn't either. So it will be interesting to see if the same thing happens. That said, there are numerous signs the same won't happen. First, Zidane seems to want to be a coach, and to want to go through the steps necessary. Zidane could have taken the Maradona approach to coaching, which is to do nothing but be good, and then gifted a managerial job. Instead, despite being gifted a nominal position at Real Madrid that required no real work but came with a damn good paycheck, Zidane checked himself into Managerial School, he allowed himself to be an assistant coach. He allowed himself to be coached in the art of coaching. That is uncommon acceptance and realism for a potential coach, especially one of Zidane's brainpower.
The simple fact that Zidane has taken the normal approach to coaching, and is willingly accepting an assistant managerial position at Real Madrid is quite shocking. Here is one of the 10 Greatest Players of All Time, sitting on the bench as the #2 coach, willingly subjicating himself to Carlo Ancellotti. Zidane seems to want to learn how to be a good manager. He is going to slow route, and that works for him.
Let's be honest, to those that don't follow the sport, Zidane will always be synonymous with the headbutt. It is one of the most infamous sporting images of the 21st Century. Behind that lies an extremely smart player, beyond being an extremely brilliant one. Zidane was one of the last true Central Attacking Midfielders that could do it all. He played the perfect position that would make a good coach, and he is trying to make that come true.
Zidane, through his people, has made it obvious that he would love the Real Madrid job. Despite arguably his best years coming at Juventus, his most famous club years (including "That Goal") came at Madrid. He was bought by Madrid. He owes a lot to Madrid, and he wants to coach Madrid. The results of the last 10 days withstanding, Carlo Ancelotti has done too good a job to exclude Zidane from that job in the next few years. Likely, Zidane's first major managerial job will be outiside the Bernabeau, and without Cristiano Ronaldo or those type of players.
There is a short list of players who were of the all-time variety to do anything of note as coaches or executives. Most have failed. Gretzky failed. Michael Jordan faield. Can Zidane sicceed? Who knows. The only evidence that he could comes from Zidane actually preparing to be a manager, taking the requisite coaching exams, being an assistant manager at a major program. It will remain to be seen if any of these means anything, but Zidane's taken the necessary steps.
Zidane was the center of a France team that came close to dominating the last old-school major competition. Since the 2006 World Cup, Spain has dominated, winning the Euro in 2008 and 2012, as well as the 2010 World Cup, playing a variant of Barca's toiki-taka style. Of course, who beat them in 2006? France, with Zizou assisting on the game-wining goal and scoring the capper himself in the 92nd minute. He was the talisman of the last team to beat Spain in a major International Knock-Out Competition. To me, that helps his cause.
Honestly., it is rare that people as historically good as Zinedine Zidane even want to coach. Most of the people that that level are content with their playing career, or take up Executive Positions with the Sports' Governing Body (see; Franz Beckebauer's current role in UEFA). Zidane, ever a traditionalist as seen by his Algerian roots, doesn't want that, at now at least.
Zidane has worked under some of the most impeccable managerial minds of the last 20 years or so. Obviously, now he is working as Carlo Ancelotti's right-hand man, who he also played under from 1999 to 2001 at Juventus. Ancelotti replaced Marcello Lippi at Juve. Lippi himsefl is arguably the Greatest Manager who Zidane has played for. Zizou played under Lippi at Juventus from 1995-1998, a period that included two trips to the UEFA Champions League Final. Zidane also lost to Lippi's men in the 2006 World Cup Final. Zidane has experienced the Great Minds of the last 25 years, which considering he, along with Lionel Messi, is the Greatest Player of the last two decades, is a pretty good trail-by-fire for his managerial career.
The Curse of Brilliance is rarely defeated, though. I don't know if Zidane can. I don't know what his footballing philosophy outside of how he viewed his position. Carlo Ancelotti has already said he believed his former player will find success, that he has already earned the respect of the Real Madrid players as a coach, and not just an icon. All that will help, as will where he goes. I hope it works. It will be interesting to watch one of the Great Footballers of All Time try to manage and do the daily grind once again.
