I loved Zinedine Zidane. I have no qualms saying that. I loved the inventiveness, the intelligence, the nonchalance, even the spikiness. Here was a man that could do it all on the football pitch. The good, bad and ugly. And the thing that was always apparent above all else was the grace with which he did it. Arsene Wenger has said before that some players turn football into art, and never has this been more applicable to any player.
Now, this is not me saying Zidane is the best player ever. Never has football seen a player as brutally efficient as Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldinho’s highest point could well be higher than anybody’s ever. Lionel Messi is…well, Lionel Messi. But nobody has ever made it look so good.
Which leads me on to the subject of today. You see, in the grand scheme of things, some goals stand out a little bit more than others. And while Zidane has had a catalogue of stand out goals, like this against Valladolid, or this against Tokyo Verdy or this against Deportivo (I could really go on and on), there’s one goal in the catalogue that peers above all the others.
It’s the most beautiful combination of technique, brutal power, unimaginable skill and grandiose occasion. Never mind that it’s on his weak foot, never mind that the ball is seemingly descending from the heavens, it’s the bloody Champions League final! This is the only time the phrase “he has no right to hit that” is passable at all.
However, hit that he did. And here is how. The anatomy of Zinedine Zidane vs Bayer Leverkusen.
For Zidane, it starts as soon as Solari has released Roberto Carlos down the left wing…actually, we’re going to take a little detour at this point. You see, Roberto Carlos had immense pace balled up in those gargantuan hamstrings. This pace allowed him to do some extraordinary things, as exhibited here. As he passes infield to Solari, he is in front of the midfield line. He basically forces Solari to clip the ball into the channel with his run, injecting verticality into the move. But the extraordinary thing is that he makes up the distance. Roberto Carlos breaks from in front of the midfield line, storms past them and then gets to the ball behind the Leverkusen defensive line. It shouldn’t have been possible, but he made it.
And now back to our scheduled programming…
Realistically, alarm bells should have been ringing at this point for Leverkusen. Zinedine Zidane, he of masterful technique and dead eye accuracy, may as well call Sterling Archer because he is officially in the dangerzone. As half time was beckoning, the Leverkusen midfield has switched off and left Zidane in the space between the lines. They may have thought that Roberto Carlos was never going to actually get on to the end of Solari’s pass (wrong) or they may have thought that Carlos was never going to be able to put over a ball with any sort of quality (correct). Whatever they thought didn’t calculate for Zidane’s wondrous ability.
In this instance, Zidane’s wondrous ability…to stand still. While the game rushes forward towards the Leverkusen goal, Zidane stands still and waits. And waits some more. As Carlos’ hooked cross ends up basically just going all the way up (word to Fat Joe), Zidane waits for it to drop into the space that he has discovered for himself. And then, in the famous words of every MTV Cribs episode ever, this is where the magic happens.
Now, we’re about to go a little inside baseball here. There are a number of subtle intricacies that all occur within the space of 2 seconds. First of all, Zidane’s body weight is on his left foot. A few shuffles of the feet occur as he shifts his body weight on to his right foot, because the cross isn’t going to reach his strong foot. Another shuffle, and now Zidane is balanced and set to strike.
The next step is subtle, but one of the most important. As the ball is dropping (still!), Zidane’s left arm goes back, opening his body. As he opens up, the hips rotate back like a boxer lining up a crushing hook. The rotation allows Zidane to generate the brutal power that will in one second see the ball flash past the Leverkusen goalkeeper.
As it drops down (still!), Zidane steps into the strike and connects beautifully. His left leg goes straight out and parallel with his hip. He steps into the hit with his right foot, and comes through the centre of the ball with his left, hooking the strike to swing it in. It’s absolutely stunning. Literally flawless technique. I cannot overstate the poise and grace of this goal.
But there is also a secret to this strike. In amidst the technique and the physiology of it all, Zidane has said himself “I remember thinking how lucky I was to catch the ball at the right angle and height.” That’s right, Zidane mentions that there is an element of luck to this goal. And it makes all the sense in the world. For all of the technique and skill that Zidane possesses, it was still a swinger. Yes, he minimized the margin of error by getting all of the preparation right in the build up and the technique is flawless on the strike. But at the end of the day it was ultimately a left foot swinger. And that’s the beauty of Zidane.
He turned a left foot swinger into a work of art.
honestpro 