The largest soccer website in the world, Goal.com, is unleashing the first five men of their fan voted Hall of Fame. Every day this week, the international web juggernaut will announce one of the men who will enter what we think will be a very respected Hall of Fame.
The first one chosen was former French superstar, Zinedene Zidane.
Zidane was born in Marseille, France to Algerian immigrants in 1972 where he grew up poor. Quickly showing skill for the game, he was scouted by Cannes and was signed by them and would make his professional debut for the team at the age of 16. Even at such a young age, it was clear to the French soccer pundits that they had something special, and he would help take the team to their first ever UEFA Cup appearance and finish fourth in the French league, which to this day is the highest that Cannes has ever finished.
After being transferred to the much larger Bordeaux team, and now playing nationally for France, Zidane became a national star. In 1996, Bordeaux would be the runner up for the UEFA Cup and Zidane would be named the French Ligue 1 Player of the Year.
It was on to even bigger things for “Zizou” as not only France knew they had a star, the rest of Europe knew there was something special about this young and aggressive player and he was signed by Juventus the defending UEFA Champions League winners. He would help take them to the finals again the next two seasons and he would be named the FIFA Player of the Year in 1998.
That would be considered secondary to what he did Internationally as he would take France to the World Cup Finals where the French would win their first World Cup title cementing Zidane as a national hero for the rest of his life.
Zidane would move on to Real Madrid in 2001 and the following season he finally captured the elusive Champions League Final in an exciting contest over Bayer Leverkusen. He would win the FIFA Player of the Year again 2003, which was his third such honor. He would again take the French to the World Cup Final in 2002, but the headbutt heard around to world aided the Italians in winning the championship.
He would retire in 2006, and take his place as the most decorated player in the history of France. Not bad for a kid who was teased for not being “French” enough.
We would like to congratulate Zinedine Zidane for this honor and Goal.com for creating what we think will become very special.
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