The Marseillais coach makes it clear in an interview with ‘L’Equipe’ that his priority is to train the ‘bleus’, although he does not close the door on the possibility of one day leading the Paris team
Zinedine Zidane turns 50 this Thursday. A very special date that the newspaper ‘L’Equipe’ has used to make him the protagonist of an extensive report in which the legendary football player and coach elaborates on his past, present and future. De Marseillais, who has been without a team since he left Real Madrid last summer, makes it clear that his priority is to coach the French team one day, but he is not closing the door on the possibility of coaching PSG in the future. “Never say never,” he says.
Zidane was the favorite of the Qatari estate to take over the reins of the Parc des Princes team after a season in which Real Madrid’s round of 16 elimination from the Champions League propelled Argentine Mauricio Pochettino’s project on track. But the 1998 world champion with France dismissed the siren songs coming out of Paris as his aim is to take Didier Deschamps at the head of the French team if his former Juventus team-mate leaves the helm of the ‘bleus’.
“Of course I want. I hope to be there one day. When? It doesn’t depend on me. But I want to close the circle with the French team,” Zidane admits in the pages of the French newspaper, confirming what has been going on for years is an open secret. “It’s the sum. And since I have already experienced it (as a player) and am currently a coach, the French team is still very much present in my mind », the coach swarms who will have to wait at least for the end of the World Cup in Qatar to see that make dream come true. “At the moment there is a technical staff. With your goals. But if the opportunity arises, I will be there,” he explains.
Since his stormy departure from Real Madrid at the end of the 2020-21 campaign with that letter accusing the club of not giving him the confidence he needed to further develop his project in the medium and long term, Zidane has had several trains. such as that of Manchester United, who saw the Frenchman as a replacement for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and this summer that of PSG, who found him the ideal candidate to revive a team that, despite the multimillion-dollar investments made to to forge a bloc full of galactics, it is still unable to reach the top in Europe.
Zidane makes it clear in the interview with ‘L’Equipe’ that he is not considering this proposal in the short term, without this meaning that he will not be able to coach PSG later. “Never say never. Especially if you are a coach these days. When I was a player I could choose and go to almost all clubs. As a manager there are not fifty clubs I can go to. There are two or three possibilities. If I go back to a club, it’s to win. I say this in all modesty. That’s why I have nowhere to go,” he clarifies.
Zidane also looks back on his successful phase as Real Madrid coach, which culminated in three consecutive Champions Leagues. “Winning the Champions League is never happiness. It’s work, and more so when you win it three times in a row. I worked like crazy. My players believed in me and I believed in them. When I win, I’m not surprised, because I gave everything,” says Zizou. Despite this, he reiterates that winning the League title is the most complicated, something he did twice in his two stages as de Witte’s helmsman. “It’s fantastic to win the Champions League, but the hardest and most beautiful thing after a whole season is to win the League. The Champions League is prestigious, many prefer to win it, but the difficulty of the League … It rewards every day, every game, every training session,” he reviews.
One of the keys to Zidane’s success as a coach is his skillful management of the locker room. The Frenchman emphasizes that knowing how to deal with footballers is essential to achieving the goals set at the start of the season. “It helped to have lived what they live, but most importantly, you shouldn’t want to be more than them. You shouldn’t piss them off. I have no ego in that. I’ve been through situations with many coaches or players who wanted to be more than others,” he says.
Remember that despite the fact that his departure was not on the best terms, he is still a Madridista. «I go to the Bernabéu whenever I can, I have a box. My kids and friends enjoy it too. I was at the Stade de France and watched the final against Liverpool,” he says. And he congratulates Karim Benzema, who he sees as winner of the Ballon d’Or this year. “Karim is like the little brother I have never had. We message each other. I’m not surprised what you do. I knew he was capable of that, he’s always been very good in Madrid. It’s just exceptional. Will he win the Ballon d’Or this year? Not only I say it, the whole world says it,” he adds.
Source: La Verdad
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