Zidane Interview: The Good, Bad and Ugly of Life After Retirement

A new, long Zidane interview showed up while I was in computer exile over the holiday break. (I’m trying to figure out how to link to the Babelfished “translation,” if only so you, too, can experience the delightful phrase, “This year, you were bad hair.”)

The headline reads, “I Need to Protect Myself.” And that sets the tone.

According to the article, since Zidane’s retirement, “Solicitations have multiplied. Of all sorts.” (Uh… Yeah. I think I read about that.) The first part of the interview is classic Zidane, where he chats about football stuff like the World Cup. But after that it gets a little…odd. And cryptic.

Says Zizou: “…I am a human being. At any given time, I needed to protect myself. Nobody else did.. But I don’t speak simply about the journalists. I speak about many things.” Then he continues, still cryptically, ripping into unnamed journalists, former players, and other undefined folks who are permitted to say negative things. The best quote of the piece: “That just makes me crap to see these guys who cut me.”

Well, then.

And then the journalists find a dozen different ways to try to get him to either a) tell them who he’s talking about, or b) at least tell them it’s not about, y’know, them. And Zidane does neither, just goes on and on, kind of beating around the bush in several different ways and saying several times that he’ll tell people how he feels to their faces, not in a newspaper. (Okay. Well and good. But then why bring it up with journalists at all?)

Hmm… Angry, headbutting footballer? I can handle that. Alleged affair participant? Whatever. But petulant sulk? Not so much. This part of the interview was almost enough to make me trade in my cherished, treasured, White #10 Zidane Away Jersey. For, like, a Canna jersey.

(Well, okay, not really.)

Fortunately, though, the tone changes, and Zidane redeems himself at the end. And not just by telling us he danced on the table after the Brazil game. (Dhorasoo? Film, please?)

He talks a bit about feeling overwhelmed by all the unexpected demands from all sides, and about how much he appreciated it during his playing days when a journalist called him after an expulsion to offer support without wanting anything from him or wanting to write it up in the papers.

And then he talks about his trip to Algeria: “I found the land of my origin, where my parents grew up.” And, “[As you get older]…you want to know certain things. My parents, it’s an open book. It was good.”

And then he chats a bit about his trip to Bangladesh for Danone (Dannon): “The goal was to open a non-profit factory. That will help people, and that interests me… It was a good trip. And at the same time, I’m with the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (note: Mohammed Yunus) who invented microcredit 40 years ago, which helps the poor and which gives to the beggar so that he can do something with his life… That interests me.”

All in all, an interview with someone whose life is currently in flux, which in the end offers up a ray of hope and sunshine for those of us who’d like to see the passion he brought to the game find another positive outlet. Allez, Zizou!

UPDATE: I think I got the Babelfished version, but only the second page is coming up. I swear, I will never make it in the 21st century!! But it seems to work if you go to the bottom of page 2 and then click the link there to “To read the first part of this interview, click here.” Sorry! Page 2 Interview.