Zinedine Zidane was one of the most aesthetically pleasing footballers ever, so much so that a movie (or more accurately “an art-house” film), Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, was made about his performance in a single Spanish league match in 2005, with some 17 cameras capturing his every feint, step-over and dribble. And yet in his short time as a manager, he has demonstrated that he already knows the single-most important thing about football management – that winning is basic, and winning with style is a bonus.
The Real Madrid team which he has led to a Champions League final against local rivals Atlético is hardly one of the great Real teams. Ronaldo aside, it does not really bear comparison with Zidane’s own Galactico-era outfit of the early noughties, let alone the side which won the first five European Cups and established Real as the world’s most successful and most famous club. And that impression has hardly been helped by Zidane’s own stewardship of the side, since he took over from Rafa Benitez halfway through this season.
He has slowly, steadily and methodically restored the fortunes and confidence of a team that had appeared woefully off the pace in both La Liga and the Champions League until his appointment. In doing so, he has put a premium on the most unlikely qualities of defensive organisation and stability, culminating in the two legs of the Champions League semi-final with Manchester City.
Collectively, the two legs of this year’s semi-final may be the most unimpressive, most unaesthetically pleasing appearance by Real in the last four of the Champions League (or its predecessor, the European Cup) in the club’s long and glorious history, even including the thrashing they endured at the feet of the great Milan side of Gullit and Van Basten in the second leg of the 1989 tie.
Admittedly, Ronaldo was absent through injury for the first leg and clearly not fully fit for the second. But Zidane’s side emphasised the organisational, even attritional attributes of football, as epitomised by their twin defensive titans, and walking red cards, Sergio Ramos and Pepe.
The Manchester City manager, Manuel Pellegrini, who himself has coached Real, was surprised by this approach by Real, especially in the first leg. Some Spanish journalists even suggested that if Rafa Benitez, Zidane’s predecessor and supposedly a much more defensive-minded manager, had sent out his team to play in that style, he would have been sacked even sooner.
Of course, Zidane, having been a Real Madrid legend on the pitch—unlike Benitez, who as a player only ever made it as far as the second tier with Castilla—has been afforded a latitude denied to many other previous Real managers. It appears that he has already learned that for any manager to survive – especially at Real, where managers like Jupp Heynckes, Vicente del Bosque and Carlo Ancelotti have won the European Cup and still been sacked – he must win first and think about how he wins later, if at all.
It is often thought that in football there is a simple binary division between winning and losing, but the truth is more complex than that. Instead of there being that simple win/lose dichotomy, there is a spectrum – yes, winning is at one end and losing at the other, but in between there are all the different shadings of how one wins or loses. The very best thing in football, as in any sport, is to win with style – with élan, with grace, with fabulous, free-flowing play that sweeps opponents aside and endures in the memory of anyone who sees it.
This is best illustrated by two of the best ever teams in club and international football: the Real side of the 1950s; and the great 1970 Brazil side which not only won the World Cup that year but seemed to usher in a new world of colour, as theirs was the first World Cup win that was not broadcast around the world in black and white.
At the other end of the footballing spectrum is losing without style – in short, losing ugly. A team that cannot win and cannot even play with some flair and fluidity will be almost universally reviled. The “ugly tree” equivalents of Real and Brazil are probably the Internazionale side of 1967 that reached the European Cup final where they were soundly beaten by Celtic’s Lisbon Lions and the appalling Argentina 1990 side that reached the World Cup final but in the process forfeited any goodwill for Argentine football which had been generated by the exciting World Cup wins of 1978 and 1986.
Zidane is obviously just at the start of his managerial career, and he might win the ultimate club trophy – the Champions League – before he has even managed for a full season. Consequently, he knows that “win first, win with style (if possible) later” is the approach to adopt, even at Real. It may not win side many new admirers, but it may well make him that rare thing – a manager of Real Madrid who retains his job.
