Zinedine Zidane (48 years old) returns to Italy once again. The Frenchman returns to the country where he became one of the best footballers in the final years of the last decade of the 20th century, but where he could not be crowned with Juventus as European champion either: Borussia Dortmund in 1997, and Real Madrid itself a year later, they prevented him from becoming champion of Europe. Now he returns to the transalpine country at the head of Real Madrid to a country, where he does not know defeat in five visits to the head of the Madrid team: they won in Rome (0-2) in 2016, Naples (1-3) in 2017, Juventus (0-3) in 2018 and Inter (0-2) in November 2010. To those four visits there are To add to it the conquest of the Undécima at the San Siro stadium in Milan against Atlético in the penalty shoot-out in 2016: 10 goals in qualifying rounds (11 in total), for only two conceded (only one in qualifying rounds).
Nevertheless, the situation this time is different. The whites arrive with nine casualties, some sensitive (Ramos, Benzema, Hazard, Valverde, Rodrygo), and others less, but no less important (Carvajal, Marcelo, Odriozola). Every adventure to hell in Bergamo. But we do talk about hell in Italian Lombardy, Zidane has experience. The French coach will not forget that night. With just three days to go until they were measured in Amsterdam, in the 1998 Champions League final, Madrid in search of the European title that had resisted them in 1996 (they lost the final to Bayern in the UEFA Cup) and 1997 (Dortmund deprived him of the Orejona). Juventus faced Atalanta in Bergamo in the League. A dangerous game: the Bergamascos played relegation, the Juventinos, finish the Scudetto no injuries before the final.
Lippi, fearful and respectful, left Zidane, Del Piero, Davids, Pessotto and Inzaghi on the bench. But before the start of the game, a triumph of Piacenza against Lecce sent the Lombard team to Second, causing many incidents of the tifossi neroazzurri. With 15 minutes remaining and after spending the entire match throwing objects, the tifossi began to throw flares onto the field and cause altercations, motivating the carabinieri enter the lawn. The referee Livio Bazzoli stopped the game. After more than 20 minutes, the match resumed after the Italian police guarded Peruzzi's goal and the visiting bench … The match ended in a draw (1-1), but three days later, the whites would take away Zidane's second chance to raise the Orejona. Four years later, Zidane himself would be crowned, and by the way to Madrid, in Glasgow with a fabulous goal. Today he will be on the bench, but this time he hopes to win again in Italy …