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LEGENDS >>>> Zinedine Zidane watches teamates during a training session in Hanover, northern Germany.

Web Exclusive | The World Cup | Zinedine Zidane Assessing The Legacy of Zizou France's greatest footballer lives to fight another day and perhaps rewrite the history books By BRUCE CRUMLEY subscribe to TIME Printable Version email this story France v Korea: A Sad End To A Wonderful Career France v Spain: Have We Witnessed The French Renaissance?

Posted Friday, June 30, 2006; 18.16BST
Sometimes one man's destiny seems so undeniable that it manages to turn back what would have otherwise been a confluence of powerful factors surging in the opposite direction, and looking to carry him off to a disappointingly unsuspected end. A certain brand of larger than life figures, the rule of fate seems to hold, simply can't end on anti-climatic whimpers — or by unexpectedly fading to black. All of what made them great in the past appears to lift them towards final, coherent triumph.

If that is indeed the constant for the rare, superlative few, it's one that continues to shape the footballing career of French striker Zinedine Zidane — who many people (myself foremost among them) feared had definitively left the game in what risked being among the saddest, quietest final bows in history. His pro retirement already official and his departure from international play set to coincide with France's final match in Germany, Zidane hung his head in his second group match when a late South Korean equalizer significantly increased the odd les Bleus would fail to qualify for the knockout round in their second straight World Cup.

Shortly after — when a terrible officiating decision resulted in Zidane's second unmerited yellow card in as many matches, leaving him automatically suspended from France's final group match — the unthinkable notion of Zizou exiting the game without a flourish, with no final burst of glory, and without even a standing ovation as he left the pitch that last time suddenly seemed like a fait accompli. The final, rotten cherry on that revolting cake when French coach Raymond Domenech — with whom Zidane is known to maintain a tensely silent relationship at best — pulled his star in the dying seconds of the South Korea match in a pathetic and futile attempt to bag a quick goal using new blood. Instead, the move merely denied Zizou what many watching were the last waning seconds of a career whose end looked — at that point — at the end of its rope.

Fortunately for Zidane — and for everyone who loves the game and the real heroes in it — his Equipe de France team mates beat Togo by the requisite two goals that whisked the second-spot qualification for the final rounds from under the noses of the South Koreans. Flushed with that new life (and the extension of Zidane's career for at least another game), France exploited their hard-earned Round of 16 berth and match with Spain for all it was worth. The result was a 3-1 victory that not only saw the awakening of a talent-deep French side that had spent the last four years sleepwalking.

It also spurred Zidane himself to rise to this dearly cherished occasion to play, to score, and to lead his Bleus to in a performance that just four days earlier seemed beyond the powers of the befuddled French. Significantly, he scored the final goal in the win — one of several in games over the years that has seen Zidane play the role of Spain's chief tormentor.

And with that — just as suddenly as the spectre of Zidane vanishing from the sport in the most unremarkable of manners for such a magical career — talk of Zizou going out with a world crown on his head is causing no one to guffaw.

As too-perfect an ending as it may seem — particularly for a man whose at times mind-boggling performances is now clearly suffering the effects of age and years of injuries — the power of Zidane's remarkable fate seems intent on bringing important aspects of full circle. For example, just hours before Zidane began his wait in the Cologne locker room for the final score against Togo that would determine if his career would get a few more days of unexpected life, he the sad news that the youth scout who had first discovered the adolescent Zizou in Marseille, and who had recruited him for AS Cannes' famed development program had died. The man responsible for putting Zidane's footballing career in motion, in other words, wasn't around to see it kicked on just a little bit further — and perhaps towards one, final hurrah.

Meanwhile, in leading the French win over the Spanish — many of whom played with Zidane at Real Madrid — Zidane extended his mother country's record of footballing domination over the nation he has adopted as his home. Despite his recent retirement from Real, Zidane and his family plan to remain in Spain indefinitely — with Zizou hoping to assume the role as a PR ambassador for Real. He'll now be able to do so without suffering the good-natured Iberian reminders of how they got the best of him in the end.

There are other signs destiny may again holding sway over Zidane's final days as a player (or at least may look that way, if one is inclined to such interpretation), and fully closing the major circles in his life. An obvious one will be Saturday's quarter final: a rematch of the France-Brazil 1998 Cup final that saw Zizou pound in a pair of goals — and reach a peak that left many calling him the world's best player at that time. Three years later France again beat Brazil in the Confederations Cup, and their last encounter (a 2004 gala match) ended up in a scoreless draw. Brazilian defender Roberto Carlos has decided that recent history — and Brazil's winning record over France historically — means the Seleçao is as due as it is dying to dish out a bit of pay back. The French reply? Until new proof to the contrary, the record show it's us who have your number. And perhaps no one among the French exudes that can-do assurance — even against footballing giants like Brazil — that captain Zidane.

Lastly, going out with a world championship would also allow Zidane to close out the chapter on the entire, excellent generation of footballers that lifted France from the lowly status of perennial also-rans, to both admired and feared individuals player and national teams. But because virtually every France side was built around Zidane's masterful play-making and relentless drive, it may take something as unobtainable as a second world crown to go along with all his other titles to allow future French coachers and players to turn the page, move ahead, and feel comfortable as post-Zidane footballers.

As it stands now, even after Zidane retires with a French defeat sometime before July 9, very few France players will be able to escape the influence of Zidane as a reference; as great and unique as he is, he'll still loom large in the rear view mirror. Could he lead France to it its second world crown in eight years, however, he'd go out on something nearly godly status: a man who took France where it never would have gotten otherwise, and became the icon of the nation's impossible footballing dreams.

For the good of France's fooballing fortunes, the next few waves of new Bleus will need to view Zidane and his legacy as so lofty that people feel compelled to aspire to it, knowing no one expects them to ever match it. What they need is another three games from a great Zidane. They need for him to leave the game on his own, magnificent terms. That will require the magic only capable by someone whose destiny has been set to forever be larger than life.

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