Filippo Inzaghi has recalled what it was like to share a pitch with Zinedine Zidane, and has little doubt about why the Frenchman has been just as successful in the dugout.
Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport ahead of France’s meeting with Italy, via TuttoMercatoWeb, the Palermo coach described a team-mate who did the thinking for the players around him.
“A real godsend for someone like me who did this job,” Inzaghi said of their time together at Juventus.
29 Aug 1999: Zinedine Zidane of Juventus during the Serie A match against Reggina at the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin, Italy. The game ended 1-1. Mandatory Credit: Claudio Villa /Allsport
Inzaghi: ‘Zidane understood the moments of a game’
Asked why that translated into three Champions League titles as a coach, he gave a simple answer.
“If you have the footballing intelligence, the personality and the ability to understand the moments of a match…”
The pair overlapped at Juventus between 1997 and 2001, winning a Scudetto together in 1997-98 and reaching the Champions League final that same season, where they lost to Real Madrid. Inzaghi left for Milan in the summer of 2001, the same window in which Zidane made his world-record move to the Bernabeu.
24 Mar 2000: Zinedine Zidane of Juventus during the Italian Serie A game between Milan and Juventus at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy. The game finished 2-0 to Milan. Mandatory Credit: Claudio Villa /Allsport
Zidane’s return to management brought him back to international football this summer, and Friday’s fixture carries obvious resonance: France against Italy, twenty years after the headbutt on Marco Materazzi in the Berlin final. Zidane addressed that again on Thursday, saying he has no regrets and that the episode gave him extra motivation to become a coach.
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