Hollywood could not have scripted it better. A grizzled general, acclaimed as the greatest warrior of the age and carrying the hopes of a nation upon his shoulders, comes out of retirement to fight a last, hopeless campaign. Every opposing army is brushed aside, save one. And today Zinedine Zidane leads France against Italy in the final battle to win the World Cup at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

Prematurely balding at 34, the French-Algerian captain is on his last legs. His legendary speed has lost its edge and at times there seems little juice left in the tank. Yet his towering presence and dazzling displays have transformed France from the World Cup’s laughing stock, rated a 12-1 outsider, into a potentially deadly adversary of Italy, the favourites.

It was Zidane’s penalty kick that put Portugal out of the Cup, to the relief of defeated England players who failed to pull off the same trick in their shootout.

Clanking with every honour the game has to bestow, Zidane is also burdened with the almost insupportable weight of France’s expectations. Such is his talismanic status that, when injury limited his performances in the 2002 World Cup, the rudderless French side suffered a nervous breakdown and collapsed. (Something similar may befall the whole nation, prone to a collective sullenness known as morosité, if the worst happens tonight.)

France’s prospects in the World Cup looked desperate, hence the wave of relief when Zidane, who retired as an international after France’s loss to Greece in Euro 2004, announced he was returning to the battlefield along with two other retired national veterans, Claude Makelele and Lilian Thuram. “I am not Zorro,” insisted the player nicknamed Zizou. Rather it seemed he was a latterday Joan of Arc who claimed he had heard angels’ voices in the night telling him his country needed him.

Zidane has always sidestepped politics, aware how vicious the French racial game can be, but his remark offered an unwitting hostage to fortune. St Joan is the adopted icon of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s xenophobic National Front, which has claimed Zidane as “a son of French Algeria”, thus evoking the fraught colonial era and attempting to undermine the footballer’s status as a role model for young Arabs in France. Le Pen regularly complains about the French team, seven of whom were born outside France.

However, Zidane was born in Marseilles and is not an Arab but a Berber from the mountainous Kabylie region of northwest Algeria who describes himself as “a non-practising Muslim”. He exhibits the distinctive ashen complexion and powerful features of a people who claim descent from the Romans. Off the field, where he commands with imperial authority, he is a somewhat gawky and shy man devoted to his wife Veronique, a former dancer of French-Spanish extraction, and their four sons, Enzo, Luca, Théo and Elyaz.

Most French people don’t care where he comes from; their patriotic joy when he headed two goals in France’s 3-0 victory over Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final produced Zidane mania. Graffiti and rap songs declared “Zizou President” and the Algerian flag flew beside the French tricolour in the Champs Elysées. In 2004 he topped a newspaper poll as “the most popular Frenchman of all time”. “It’s a message to everybody — politicians, the kids I grew up with, ordinary French people — about what can be done,” he said.

The adulation is shared by other countries’ players. David Beckham has called his former team-mate at Real Madrid “the greatest player in the world”, a view echoed by Roy Keane, former captain of Manchester United. Franz Beckenbauer, Germany’s former star and now organiser of the World Cup, said: “He has no equal. He looks more like a dancer than a football player. No one will ever equal his elegance.”

The world’s most complete footballer of the past 20 years, Zidane is an attack-minded midfielder like Beckham, but unlike Beckham he can thread the ball through the middle of the field and his goal-scoring record is higher. He mesmerises defenders with a repertoire of skills that range from drag-backs and flicks to cheeky little passes.

There was little evidence of such wizardry in France’s two opening World Cup games, when the side’s lacklustre draws against Switzerland (0-0) and South Korea (1-1) prompted derision. The turning point came when they defeated Spain 3-1: Zidane raised his game and when he plays well, the saying goes, so does France.

Then Brazil, the 5-2 favourites to retain the trophy, went down 1-0 to France in the quarter final, and it was evident something extraordinary was happening. In the semi-final against Portugal, France seemed to be drifting, but Zidane’s winning goal restored French nerves and national fervour.

There were reminders that Zidane has a dark side. In the Portugal game he was warned for diving and was lucky to escape a yellow card. He once had a reputation for sudden and shocking violence, most notably when he head-butted Jochen Kientz of Hamburg during a Champions League match in 2000, earning him a five-match suspension.