Thirteen years ago, Luke McLaughlin, Paris Shilton’s “Australia Correspondent”, got to see first-hand how good Zinedine Zidane was, how nasty Kevin Muscat could be and Patrick Vieira shopping. The memory has stayed with him.
By Luke McLaughlin
“When we don’t know what to do, we just give the ball to Zizou and he works something out.” – Bixente Lizarazu
In November 2001, France’s team travelled across the world to Melbourne to play a ‘friendly’ against Australia.
It was a long way to go for an apparently meaningless game but Australia needed the practice: they were preparing to face Uruguay in a two-legged World Cup qualification play-off.
The match was controversial. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger led the loud complaints from assorted European clubs, who would see their France internationals fly 20,000 miles or so for a kick-around on an Australian cricket pitch.
It did seem faintly ridiculous for the World and European Champions, some of the world’s best (and best-paid) footballers, flying so far during the domestic season for a one-off friendly against Australia at the MCG. Nevertheless France touched down in Melbourne with an almost full-strength squad.
I was working in Melbourne during a clichéd gap year and my office was a matter of yards from France’s team hotel. I bumped into Patrick Vieira and Nicolas Anelka one morning. They were strolling along Collins Street in team-issue blue tracksuits and white trainers, attracting remarkably little attention.
Melbourne is a footie-mad city but footie is AFL.
European stars of a game regrettably described by a small minority of natives as ‘Poofterball’ (never to Vieira’s face) were not widely recognised.
I got Vieira’s autograph for my Arsenal-supporting Aussie mate. Anelka was shy but Vieira was relaxed, friendly, and the most physically imposing man I have ever met. He told me they were going shopping.
Two days later and the Melbourne Cricket Ground is sold out. France are the World and European Champions and have the world’s most expensive player, Zinedene Zidane.
Four months previously Zidane’s £45.8m transfer from Juventus to Real Madrid broke the transfer world record. “We must have the best players in the world,” Florentino Perez insisted. Was it really that simple? Zidane’s status as a ‘non-practising Muslim’ opened up lucrative TV markets for the club.
France had Zidane, Vieira, Robert Pires and Claude Makelele. Australia had Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka and Kevin Muscat.
If you ever have a ticket to watch a sporting great (I don’t mean Muscat) here’s a small piece of advice: get there early.
As the pre-match warm-up ended and their team-mates headed for the changing room and a last-minute application of hair product (hi, Vincent Candela), Zidane and Christophe Dugarry, his former Bordeaux team-mate, stood 30 yards apart on the sodden pitch.
They were volleying passes back and forth. A volleyed pass, instant control, a couple of keepy-uppys, a volleyed pass. They were powering the ball at each other, controlling it with heads, chests, shoulders, even feet. It was a mesmerising display of skill and technique which demonstrated two things.
Firstly, Zidane’s intensity. It was obvious. Not by accident was Zizou the greatest creative midfielder in the world.
It’s only through individual hard work that football could ever begin to look easy. Whether is was belting a 30-yard pass to his mate in a warm-up, or scoring one of the great European Cup final goals, Zidane’s concentration on precise technique was absolute.
He even head-butts opponents with precision and creativity.
As Lizarazu says, there was a calmness about him as a footballer, at least most of the time. A rare composure and clear-sightedness that lesser players lack. In terms of his constant willingness to receive the ball he was calm. Zidane’s temper may have been volcanic but during a match he was almost always composed. Until someone got him riled.
He seemed to have more time than more limited players, and never seemed concerned by the close attention of opposition defenders.
Secondly, this warm-up routine between friends showed how great players can motivate their team-mates to improve, to push themselves further. Dugarry knew Zidane was the best he’d ever played with.
Whether in a spirit of self-improvement or competition with his old friend and former Bordeaux team-mate, Dugarry wouldn’t be outdone in this impromptu game of foot-tennis. He was outstanding, just like Zidane, and didn’t look any less gifted a footballer.
(By this point, Dugarry was back at Bordeaux, where he and Zizou served apprenticeships together. Zidane went to Juventus and won trophies. Dugarry spent unsuccessful, injury-affected seasons at AC Milan and Barcelona.)
Alas there seems to be no YouTube footage of their warm-up, so here’s a clip of Zidane and Dugarry playing a highly competitive game of petanque and talking football:
And heaven knows there is plenty of spicy YouTube stuff from the game.
It ended 1-1, Craig Moore’s header cancelled out by David Trezeguet’s second-half equaliser, in a match that should only ever be called a ‘friendly’ in inverted commas.
It’s mainly remembered for a two-footed tackle by the irrepressible Wolverhampton Wanderers legend Muscat on Dugarry. Muscat claimed Pires had spat at him in an earlier clash, which made him so angry he soon appeared to try and break both of Dugarry’s legs with one tackle.
“Football isn’t a game of skittles,” said France manager Roger Lemerre after the match. “What happened to Dugarry is something I regret bitterly … brutality is something I cannot accept.”
“I want to confirm that the tackle was not made with any malice or intent to cause injury,” countered Muscat. “The momentum of the tackle and the weather conditions contributed to the injury sustained by Dugarry.”
Dugarry was ruled out for three months, Bordeaux owner Nicolas de Tavernost demanded compensation from Soccer Australia, but Muscat and his mates had more important things to worry about.
The practice against France paid off, at least to begin with. Nine days later a Muscat penalty saw them beat Uruguay 1-0 in the first leg of the play-off.
They lost the return leg 3-0, and for the second time in four years fell at the final World Cup qualification hurdle. (Terry Venables oversaw a late, painful and arguably undeserved play-off defeat by Iran in qualifying for the 1998 World Cup.)
On the plus side, quite literally, Australia’s goal difference of +66 in the Oceania qualifying group wasn’t too shabby. They had hammered Samoa 22-0 away and 11-0 at home, but saved the real fireworks for American Samoa, edging past them 31-0 in Coffs Harbour in April 2001. It was 16-0 at half-time – a tough team talk for the ashen-faced American Samoa boss.
After his unforgettable cameo with Dugarry during the warm-up, watching Zidane in a real football match was pretty special too. His awareness, vision and ball control were like nothing I’d ever seen.
It was difficult to take your eyes off him mainly because he was always involved. More than once during the match, if a team-mate failed to understand his intention of a disguised pass or a quickly executed one-two, he’d stare at them with a mixture of confusion and disbelief, as if to say: “How could you not see that?” At the time, he was the best.
France were eliminated from the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea without scoring a goal, winning a single point (beaten by Senegal and Denmark, they mustered a 0-0 draw with Australia’s play-off conquerers Uruguay). Maybe it was the jet-lag.
Dugarry retired in 2005, presumably with a sore knee and a determination to give Kevin Muscat a wide berth in wet conditions. Although he lacked the recognition and club trophies of Zidane, World Cup and European Championship winners’ medals was hardly a poor return. He was also inducted into Birmingham City’s Hall of Fame.
Zidane won everything at Real Madrid, and now coaches Real Madrid ‘B’, anticipating a crack at the big job. Like Muscat he might be remembered for occasional bursts of physical violence, but he could play a little bit too.
Paris Shilton 