The 'FeliZidane' that does not stop

His smile has gotten Madrid out of more than a hurry and his guide has led the club to 11 titles since just five years ago he was first given the keys to the white bench. The Zidane era, only interspersed with those eight months of Lopetegui and Solari, is five years old. “I don't see myself as Sir Alex Ferguson of Real Madrid,” he said recently. His philosophy is pure Carpe Diem. “I enjoy every day, I am privileged.”

Maybe that way of living and your trust in superior help (“I know I am not a normal person, there is a star up there that protects me,” he once confessed to the journalist Frédéric Hermel in a talk that he recounted in his book Zidane) has led him to survive in these five years several matchballs against and the disturbing loitering of the figures of Mourinho and Pochettino. Now has Madrid entering 2021 alive in everything: League, Champions, Cup and with the Spanish Super Cup, the first title at stake and that he defends as the current champion, ten days away …

An abrupt landing

It wasn't planned like that but Zidane decided to abruptly accelerate his desire to coach Real Madrid. He came from being cold in a 2-2 against La Roda in Segunda B to be seen, on January 4, 2016, before the flashes. Benítez left through one door of the Bernabéu and through another Zizou arrived in the middle of a rarefied atmosphere, with a 0-4 in the Classical and shouts of “Florentino, resign!”. The Marseillais looked like a first aid kit to stop an arterial hemorrhage and ended, four months later, lifting the Undécima in Milan. From depression to euphoria.

More 'Orejonas'. 2016-17 became the perfect season in terms zidanans, at least so far. A League and Champions double (the Twelfth in Cardiff where he dismantled Juventus) burning the kerosene that provided him with his invention of a dazzling Unit B (James, Morata, Kovacic, Danilo …) and that he is now trying to revive in 2021 with Asensio, Lucas Vázquez and Nacho, among others.

While his critics accused him of have flowerAs if the trophies were piling up by magic, Zizou grappled with the avatars of the BBC and winning eliminatory rounds to such renowned coaches as Klopp, Simeone, Allegri, his 'teacher' Ancelotti (the Marseillais was the second of Carletto in the Tenth), Heynckes and in the League he also knew how to defeat Cholo and Luis Enrique.

Cristiano and Bale have been two names of great importance in Zidane, for different reasons. The final against Liverpool created a before and after and left the most complex dressing room situation of all that Zizou has had to face. Without his scoring beast, Cristiano, and seeing what to do with Bale. The fracture with the Welshman became irreparable after that final and it made his coach so mad that Zidane lost his greasy waist to the microphones and left a phrase for history in the 2019 preseason, when Gareth threatened to go to China. “Better today than tomorrow,” was the lapidating reply. A pulse that is right now in stand-by. Bale theoretically has to return to Madrid next summer once his assignment at Tottenham ends … if Zidane allows it.

The sequel … with Raúl in the background

That philosophy of perennial serenity collapsed after the Thirteenth and only four days later he announced that he was leaving, accompanied in Valdebebas by a crestfallen Florentino and hiding behind the fact that the team needed “new methods.”

The film jumps right now to March 11, 2019. The faint tone of goodbye gave way in just 284 days to a return to full color. “The president called me and I'm here because I love him and the club”. An image of that presentation that may contain a curious wink now in a future code. Two positions to the right of the technician Raúl attended the event. The heir. This is how the club sees the mythical Seven, like the man destined to pick up the baton from Zidane one day.

A blessing from heaven

That will be in any case later, because in the meantime Zidane defends the 2019-20 League, the Coronavirus League as defined by Ramos, where Zizou was the best strategist. His return from the break was a dictatorship (ten victories and a draw with the title already won) and now he will have to figure out how to go back to Atleti.

In these five years, Zizou has been the coach in 234 Madrid games (157 wins, 45 draws, 32 losses) in which he has employed 76 different players. “A blessing from heaven”, as Florentino Pérez proclaimed him in the celebration of the Spanish Super Cup, just a year ago. A blessing that lasts for five years.