Zidane: Juventus in my heart, but France job is my goal | OneFootball

Zinedine Zidane spoke about his future as a coach at the Festival dello Sport in Trento, not ruling out the Juventus bench but putting himself forward for the role of coach of the French national team after Deschamps.

Zidane: “Return to coaching? For sure. Juventus in my heart, but the goal is the French national team”

“I will definitely return to coaching,” said the French coach, who has been out of work since 2021. “Me at Juventus? I don’t know why it never happened. It’s a club I always keep in my heart, because it gave me so much. In the future, I don’t know, but one of my goals is to coach the French national team. We’ll see.”

Zidane then spoke about his decision to pursue this career once he hung up his boots: “When I stopped playing, I changed my life. After three years I didn’t know what to do, I tried many things until I enrolled in the coaching course. Of all the coaches I had, the one I learned the most from was Lippi: he was very important, because when I arrived in Italy it was difficult for me at first, but he always believed in me. I first had Ancelotti as a coach, then I became his assistant: he is a friend, he was important for my career. He was a great coach because he listened to us players.”

“For me, the coach accounts for 80% in a club,” he explained. “Of course, I had fantastic players like Ronaldo, Benzema, Kroos, Isco, Modric… They never lost the ball in training, maybe Cristiano lost it a bit but he scored incredible goals. When I was playing, Totti was supposed to come too, he said so himself. Instead, Cassano came. I played with him and he was good, he deserved to play more. It wasn’t true that he just caused trouble. The rival team that impressed me the most, though, was the Milan of the Dutchmen and Sacchi.”

On the qualities of a coach, Zizou has few doubts: “He must be passionate about football, in a strong way. It’s not only those who win who are good, there are good coaches who can’t win. The most important thing for me is to transmit something to the players. When you are passionate, then you transmit something to the players.” The former French football star then recalled his time with Juventus (1996-2001): “Those years were wonderful. I came from France, where football was good but not like at Juve. In Turin, I felt that you just had to win, always. Both at home and away. What stuck with me most about lawyer Agnelli is that when I played well, he would call me at 6 in the morning to congratulate me. He was a gentleman, you could see he was passionate about football. Del Piero? He was amazing, one of the strongest players in Italy. I was lucky to play 4-5 years with him and many others. We really had a great team, but Del Piero had something special.”

On Juventus’ troubled relationship with the Champions League, even Zidane struggles to explain: “The Champions League is complicated to win. We reached the final twice and lost (in ’97 against Dortmund and in ’98 against Real Madrid), but I don’t know why. It also depends on the club, on what you want to do: to win the Champions League, it takes a lot.”

Then the behind-the-scenes story of his transfer to Real Madrid: “We were at a gala in Monaco and at dinner Florentino Perez sent me a note asking if I wanted to come to Real. After 5 years at Juve, I told myself: ‘now or never’, and I accepted. But it’s not true that the veterans like Figo didn’t pass me the ball, I got it all right. At Real, the player I liked the most arrived: Ronaldo the phenomenon. In training, he did incredible things. He would say to me: ‘now I’ll nutmeg you twice’ and he really did.”

On the lack of number 10s in modern football: “It’s true, there’s a lack of players who receive the ball between the lines. If I were still playing today, I would do what my coach says defensively, but in attack I would do what I feel inside, trying to invent play. There are still many good players… My idol? It was Enzo Francescoli (current sporting director of River Plate and French champion with OM in the 1989/90 season). He gave me chills, but today I can’t name just one. I can say Yamal. Yildiz? I like him but he still has to grow. Juve with Igor, whom I know well, is doing well and I’m happy for him and for Juve.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.