Zinedine Zidane and Leo Messi They starred in delicious talk of pure football at an event organized by Adidas with the football number ’10’ as the starting point. The two professed their mutual admiration and deep respect despite being rivals in the Classics, the Frenchman wearing a t-shirt and as coach of real Madrid and the Argentine, wearing Barcelona in FC Barcelona. But among the distribution of praise, one stands out from the myth of merengue to the legend of culé.
“I may have seen things before the other players, but if I thought a second before, you were three seconds ahead of everyone else. It’s a shame I didn’t get to play with you. Messi It should be a model for people. Because this is his life… Football and family. Family and football… Nothing else. Leo is magic. This is what I want, we are not together every day but today is an important day to tell him how much I admire him. Pure magic, I knew what to do and seeing something like that… I almost knew what I was going to do when I looked at him. When I see him doing that I say, this is it. “This is what people want to see in football, a player like few others,” he commented. Zidane.
And the Frenchman continued: “What 10 should have is a little magic, like you. Because he is the leader of the team, he has to create. What you have, 10 has to do something that no one else does . . . To me that’s what sets you apart from others. That the players see what they have to do before receiving the ball. You know what you’re going to do and very few do it. 10 has to represent that. While you can a leader does that, it’s better for the team.”
Messi He responded in a similar tone: “I admire you very much. We were not lucky enough to play together, but to face each other a few times and then with you as a coach. Always have respect and admiration for all you did and keep going For me this is one of the greatest in history, I always admired him, I followed him a lot in Madrid, I experienced it because I am from Barça. He is always a different player, elegant, tall, magic, he has everything. “I remember the goal against Leverkusen, the World Cup goals, the roulette…”
Messi: “We want to be like him”
“There was no one like Maradona”
Messi remembered Maradona when talking about the number 10′: “For us Argentines, 10 is a very special number, because you see 10 and Maradona comes to mind. We want to be like him, although eventually no one has been like him, the desire is that. Maradona is number 10 and the player we admire,” he said Leo in Zidane’s long conversation.
“I saw little of Diego, when he went to Newell’s in his final stage he was six or seven years old and I don’t remember, just like the 1994 World Cup. I was young, I don’t remember much. Then I saw videos .He is our reference, our idol. For us Diego It’s something very strong that will continue to be there for many years, I have no doubt. “My kids know about Diego without seeing him, from the video, from what we have,” he added.
Messi He said that he greatly appreciates his countrymen PAblo Aimar or Juan Román Riquelme and he thinks that 10 is a position that has disappeared in modern football.
“A lot is lost now. My position used to reflect that it was the hook, now with the 4-3-3 or 4-2-2, it is true that there are few left. Our 10, which characterized the Argentine 10, Riquelme, Aymar, little or nothing. 10 does not enter those systems or it is difficult to enter it. That’s why the training of those players disappeared,” he said.
Messi He also admitted that when he was at Paris Saint Germain he suffered from not wearing the number 10 shirt. In France, by wearing the Neymar That number, the Argentine chose number 30. “When I had to be in Paris, I didn’t have number 10. I used to wear it, although I didn’t care and nothing happened, I missed not having it. Then I got used to it, because I debuted me at 30.”
a revelation
Zidane, the ‘5’ and Florentino
Zidane He recalled the reason why he wore the ‘5’ in Madrid: “When you wear the 10, there is more pressure, but for those who know, nothing will happen. For those who don’t know, if you wear 10, there is more pressure. Me. when I arrived in Madrid on 10th I have it fig. I liked the 5, but in the end it’s what you do on the field that counts. Seeing a midfielder with 5 is also strange. Florentino Pérez doesn’t want to see players with 30, 35… He wants it the old way, from 1 to 11 and that’s it. In the end, the number 5 is strong for me now because it is my history in Madrid. 10 is good but so is 5. I don’t remember much about Juve’s 21.”
Despite not remembering that 21, invited to remember a great match of his, he did not choose one in Madrid or France, but rather a match with Juventus: “It is very difficult to choose one. There was a game when I is on Juventus, against Ajax, a semi-final of the Champions League. We won in Turin 4-1. Not many people remember.”
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
