Coach is the senior national team of Nigeria Gernot Rohr has lifted the lid on how he gave three times World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane his first career breakthrough.
Rohr was coach of Bordeaux in 1992 when a young Zidane then 20 years old arrived from Cannes and the coach says he immediately won him over with his technical abilities.
“We immediately saw his technique, his skill with the ball. We also saw his mind which was that of an ambitious young player who wanted to make his place. He was 20 years old at the time. We saw him arrive with all his qualities and we immediately saw that he was a player of the future”, Rohr said.
He said the present coach of Real Madrid didn’t show any sign of nervousness when he was mixed with the senior players and that was what convinced him to give him a chance with the first team.
“He was one of the best on the team. We had a very young team. There were young players like Christophe Dugarry, Bixente Lizarazu. We had a young, winning team and this young Zizou, as we called him, was very promising, from his arrival […] He had this technical facility, which is not just natural. This talent for football that he had, it is also the fruit of work. He trained as a young trainee player, as an aspirant at Cannes where he has already acquired the basics.
“At 15, he was already in a training center. Then, by means of working hard, he was able to perfect his technique with a great speed of execution, he went very quickly with the ball. And he also had this specialty of set pieces, which he had also worked on in training, after group sessions.
“He kept the ball so he could train on his own. He took a goalkeeper, it was at the time Gaëtan Huard and he repeated free kicks, with his right foot, without stopping. It is therefore also the fruit of work ”, he concluded.
Osas Mahawi
