Zinedine Zidane is a former French football player and currently the manager of the Spanish club Real Madrid. The all time football star Zidane last played for Real Madrid as a midfielder and too played for clubs like Cannes, Bordeaux, and Juventus. The 45 years old World Cup winner has an estimated net worth of $70 million.
Zinedine Zidane was born on 23 June 1972, in Marseille, France, and his full name is Zinedine Yazid Zidane. Nick named as "Zizou", he was born to Small Zidane and Malika Zidane. He is of Algerian Kabyle descent and belongs to French nationality. He is the youngest of his other four siblings; Lila Zidane, Farid Zidane, Nourredane Zidane, and Madjid Zidane.
Zidane started to play football at the age of 5 on the roads of La Castellane, a rough section of Marseille. The son of the Algerian immigrants then played for the local clubs while he was 10.
Zidane began his professional footballing career since 1986 joining the youth squad of a French club Cannes. After three years of junior career, he further ended up remaining at the club for four years to play the professional level. He made his professional debut with Cannes on 18 May 1989 in a French Division 1 match against Nantes and scored his first professional goal on 10 February 1991 against Nantes. He played for the club for three years appearing in 61 games and scoring 6 goals. He then switched to Bordeaux in 1992 signing a four years contract. There he played the role of mid-fielder starting regular for his team, he received the award of Ligue 1 Player of the Year in 1996.
Zinedine Zidane was in the club for 4 years making his appearances in 139 games and scored 28 goals; he then moved towards Italy. After a series of stand out performances for both Bordeaux and France, he had offers to join Europe's top clubs in the spring of 1996 and decided a move to UEFA Champions League winners Juventus. He was slowly developing as the best player of his era, he was named FIFA World Player of the Year, and won the Ballon d'Or in 1998. He was in the club for 5 years helping his team to win several major trophies. He won 151 caps for the club and scored 24 goals.
Zidane then moved to the most valuable team of the time, Real Madrid in 2001 signing a four-year contract with a record fee of $80 million. The team had great players like Ronaldo, Beckham, Raul, Figo, Carlos, in fact, the best team of the time. In his first season at the club, Zidane's match-winning goal, a volley hit with his weaker foot, in Madrid's 2–1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final is still regarded as one of the greatest in Champions League history. He ended the season for Real Madrid as their second highest goalscorer and assists provider only behind teammates Ronaldo and David Beckham respectively having scored nine goals and ten assists in 28 games. He has won 155 caps for the team and scored 37 goals. He announced his plans to retire after the 2006 World Cup, played his last match and scored in a 3–3 draw with Villarreal. The team wore dedicatory shirts with ZIDANE 2001–2006 below the club logo. The 80,000 fans inside the Santiago Bernabéu held up a banner reading, "Thanks for the magic."
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Zinedine Zidane made his professional dream debut with France as a substitute in a friendly match against the Czech Republic on 17 August 1994, the game ended in a 2–2 draw after he scored twice to help France erase a 2–0 deficit. After Eric Cantona's long suspension, Zidane took over the playmaker position. The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the first World Cup that Zidane participated in, his two goals from the header in the final against the defending World Cup Champions won France the World Cup Title in 1998.
Zidane became an immediate national hero, and over one million people celebrated the success on the Champs-Élysées where a huge image of Zidane was conserved on the Arc de Triomphe along with the words "Merci Zizou". He won several other major trophies with his national side.
Zidane led his national side to the 2006 World Cup final. Seven minutes into the final match against Italy, Zidane put France ahead with a penalty kick and became only the fourth player in World Cup history to score in two different finals, along with Pele, Paul Breitner, and Vava. He was then sent off in the 110th minute of the game after headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest and France lost the match in penalties. After the red card in the final, he retired from professional football and confirmed that he would not go back on his decision.
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Zidane was announced as the advisor to the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez on June 1, 2009. He was declared as a special adviser to Real Madrid's first team in response to an appeal made by former Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho to work more closely with the team. In July 2011, it was announced that he would become Real Madrid's new sporting director and later in 2013, Zidane was appointed as assistant coach to Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid's first team.
After the dismissal of Madrid's manager Rafael Benitez, Zidane was named the new manager of the club on 4 January 2016. Two seasons with the club as manager and he won every major trophy like Champions league, Super Cup, La-Liga and much more. He currently manages the star players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Isco, Luca Modric, Gareth Bale in the Real Madrid.
Zinedine Zidane is a married man, he met his future wife Veronique Fernandez while he was playing for Cannes, at the age of 17. The couple dated for several years and finally tied their knots on May 28, 1994.
They have four children all sons: Enzo Alan Zidane Fernandez born on 24 March 1995, Luca Zinedine Zidane Fernandez born on 13 May 1998, Theo Zidane Fernandez born on 18 May 2002, and Elyaz Zidane Fernández born on 26 December 2005. All his sons are playing football; Enzo plays as a midfielder for Deportivo Alaves, Luca is a third-choice goalkeeper for Real Madrid, Theo plays as a midfielder in Cadete A and Elyaz too a midfielder in Infantil B for Real Madrid Academy.
Zinedine Zidane has an estimated net worth of $70 million in 2017, including all his incomes and properties. Just began his career as a manager, he has already managed to place himself among the top ten highest paid managers in 2016, he is listed in the top 10 list with an annual salary of $5 million in 2016. He lives with his family in a mansion in Madrid worth $2.5 million with home cinema, swimming pool, gaming zone etc. As for riding he has several cars but usually uses a Porsche.
He has several endorsing deals with brands like Adidas, Lego, France Telecom, Orange, Audi, Volvic and Christian Dior. The sponsorship deals earned him €8.6 million on top of his €6.4 million Real Madrid salary in 2006, totaling €15 million ($20.4 million), which made him the sixth-highest paid football star.
