The scarred French messiah
Even as an adolescent, Zidane was a volatile cocktail of calm and aggression.
One report quoted a football talent scout as saying that when Zidane was viciously tackled in a game for one of his boyhood clubs, he acted as if nothing happened.
Minutes later, he had caught hold of his assailant, and rammed his head into him, knocking him
out flat. Deja vu?
Also See: 'I didn't call Zidane a terrorist'
But Jean Varraud, one of the French club AS Cannes' talent scouts, spotted that beside a hot head, Zidane 'had feet of gold.'
AS Cannes president Jean Claude Elineau too realised his club had signed a gem. Zidane played his first match for the club when he was merely 17. His first goal was awarded with a car, a Renault
Clio. Zizou was ecstatic.
But he really burst onto the European football scene with his instrumental role in making his next club, Bordeaux, the UEFA champions in 1995-1996.
Storm below the calm: Zidane is capable of stunning everyone with his skill and his explosive anger.
Photograph: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images
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