Adieu Le Professuer

What a way to end a glittering career!!!

But before we jump on the bandwagon and crucify le professeur, we have to remember that this fellow is one of the very best to have ever kicked the round leather, so we have to pay him tribute.

Zinedine Yazid Zidane (زين الدين زيدان) was born in Marseille, France on June 23, 1972 and raised in La Castellane, a government-sponsored housing project in the northern suburbs of Marseille (the "Quartiers Nord"). Though born in Marseille, Zidane never played for Olympique de Marseille. His time in the French league was spent with AS Cannes and Bordeaux until he was bought by Juventus for £3 million.

In 2001 Zidane transferred from Italian team Juventus to Spanish club side Real Madrid on a four-year contract. The transfer fee was €66 million, making him the most expensive player in football history. His fellow Galacticos at Madrid included Raúl González, Luís Figo, Ronaldo, David Beckham, and Roberto Carlos. He scored a spectacular winning goal in a 2-1 win over the German team Bayer Leverkusen in the 2001-2002 Champions League Final in Glasgow's Hampden Park.

On 7 May 2006, Zidane played his last home game for Real Madrid at the famous Santiago Bernabéu stadium. Real Madrid players wore a special jersey which had "ZIDANE 2001 - 2006" written on the bottom of the club logo. As expected, the Real Madrid fans gave him a warm reception and kept cheering him through the whole game. This game was played against Villarreal CF and, unfortunately for Zidane, the game ended in a 3-3 draw after Real Madrid came back from behind. Zidane scored the second goal for Real Madrid without any major celebration. Zidane exchanged his jersey with Juan Roman Riquelme, the Villarreal CF and Argentinian midfielder. At the end of the game, the Real Madrid fans said goodbye to Zidane with a massive ovation that left him in tears.

Zidane has both French and Algerian ancestry, and therefore could have played for Algeria. However, back in 1992 as African defending champions, the Algerian national coach Abdelhamid Kermali denied him a position on the team, arguing that the young midfielder was "not fast enough". Zidane received his first le Bleus jersey on August 17, 1994, entering at the 63rd minute of a match against the Czech Republic. France was behind 2-0 when Zidane came to the pitch and subsequently scored two goals, which led to a 2-2 final result.

Zidane was a member of the French football team in the 1998 FIFA World Cup, scoring two headed goals in the final against Brazil, which ended in a 3-0 victory. This earned France its first World Cup championship and it was also the first time in 20 years that a host had won the tournament. Earlier in the competition he received a red card and a two-game suspension in a 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia for stomping on an opposing player for no apparent reason. Reports from people close to Zidane state that the Saudi player in question had provoked him verbally.

Two years later, Zidane and France won a second major championship, Euro 2000. The national team was ranked number one in the world after this victory, and this was the first time since West Germany in 1976 that a team held both the World Cup and Euro titles.

Injuries prevented him from performing at his best in the 2002 FIFA World Cup. France's defense of their title was spectacularly unsuccessful; the team was eliminated in the first round without scoring a single goal. Zidane rushed back from his injury in time to play in France's last game, but could not perform at his usual high level.

On August 12, 2004, after France lost Euro 2004 to the eventual winners, Greece, Zidane retired from international football. He announced on February 4, 2005 that he would retire from the game at the end of his current contract with Real Madrid, at the end of the 2006-07 season.

After France experienced serious problems in attempting to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Zidane announced on August 3, 2005 that he was coming out of international retirement to make a comeback for Les Bleus. He stated on his official website: "I have gone back on my decision, one year after I said it was categorical." On the same day, French teammate and Chelsea midfielder Claude Makélélé, who also quit the French team following Euro 2004, said he wanted to come out of international retirement as well, and in the same week, Lilian Thuram made the same announcement. The trio made their competitive return in the 3-0 FIFA World Cup qualifier win against the Faroe Islands on September 3, and France went on to win their qualifying group.

However, on 25 April 2006, after an injury-plagued season at Real Madrid, Zidane announced that he would retire from professional football after representing France in the 2006 World Cup finals to be held in Germany.

On May 27, 2006, Zidane earned his 100th cap for France with a 1-0 victory over Mexico at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris. It was his last match in that stadium and he became only the fourth Frenchman after Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps and Lilian Thuram to earn a century of national caps. He was substituted early in the second half.

In the closing minutes of France's second match of the 2006 World Cup, Zidane was given a yellow card for running into a player late. As a result, he was suspended from the third and final match of the group stage. France nonetheless won that match against Togo 2-0, allowing Zidane to play in the knockout round against Spain.

In the Round 2 knockout match in the 2006 World Cup, Zidane assisted on the second goal by sending a free kick in to the penalty area (after a controversial foul on Thierry Henry) and scored a third during France's 3-1 victory over Spain, on June 27, 2006. The win booked Zidane and France's date with defending champions Brazil in the quarter-finals of the tournament.

On 1 July 2006, France beat heavily favoured Brazil 1-0 in Frankfurt. Turning in a virtuoso performance complete with one of his trademark "roulette" spins, Zidane provided the free-kick assist from which Thierry Henry scored the winning goal, and was named Man of the Match by FIFA's Technical Study Group. On 5 July 2006, France met Portugal in Munich for the semi-final. Zidane scored a penalty kick against Ricardo, which turned out to be the only goal of the game and saw France through to the final.

Zidane scored on a penalty kick in the World Cup final against Italy. That goal was his 31st for France in his 108th appearance, and the third at this World Cup. That put him in a tie for fourth place with Just Fontaine and Jean-Pierre Papin on France's all-time scorers list.

On July 9, 2006, Zidane became one of only four footballers to achieve the feat of scoring in two different World Cup final matches (he scored twice in the 1998 FIFA World Cup final), sharing that honour with Pelé, Paul Breitner, and Vavá. He scored in the seventh minute from the penalty spot. He nearly headed in the ball during the first period of extra time but it was saved by Gianluigi Buffon. His career ended on a sour note when he received a red card and was ejected after headbutting Italy's Marco Materazzi in the chest in the 110th minute. He was the fourth person to have been sent off in a World Cup final and the first to be sent off during extra time. The game ended in a 1-1 draw and Italy won the championship after a penalty kick shootout. His team members later reported to French media that Zidane was reacting to a racial slur from Materazzi. The Italian side has catagorically denied that Materazzi had any role in the provocation of Zidane. Following the game, Zidane still was applauded as a hero in Paris and throughout France, and Materazzi was subsequently booed for the remaining portion of the game following Zidane's red card by the majority French crowd.

He has been elected FIFA World Player of the Year three times (1998, 2000, 2003) and once as European Footballer of the Year (1998).

Lot of material stolen from here for the sake of objectivity. I am an Italian fan afterall...