There is a scene in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall in which, strolling through New York, he protests about the fashion for compiling lists. “Greatest 20th-century dictator: Adolf Hitler!” In football, as in most other fields, comparisons are not only odious, but, tinged by time, largely irrelevant. Asked to place the remarkable Zinedine Zidane, I am hoist by my own petard, because nine years ago I contributed a list of my 100 greatest footballers to a magazine and I suppose I had better stand by it.
Zidane’s claims to be well up that list are indisputable. He has excelled in his third World Cup after playing little part four years ago because of injury. Early in this tournament, he seemed a busted flush, at odds with the France manager, Raymond Domenech, after an indifferent season with Real Madrid, ineffective in France’s opening matches against Switzerland and South Korea.
In the latter he picked up a yellow card that kept him out of the next match, and suffered the humiliation of being substituted by Domenech, past whom he strode without a look or a word. This was the player whose two headers gave France a 2-0 lead over Brazil in the World Cup final of 1998 in Paris. A man whose astonishing goal, a marvel of force and technique, had won Real Madrid the European Cup final in May 2002 against Bayer Leverkusen.
In France’s subsequent game against Togo, Domenech paired David Trezeguet with Thierry Henry, his old striking partner from their Monaco days. It seemed inevitable that Zizou would be on the bench for the second-round match against Spain. But Domenech took what appeared to be a gamble by recalling Zidane — and how it paid off.
At 34, a rejuvenated Zizou played ducks and drakes with his younger Spanish opponents, magisterial at times, almost contemptuous in his sang-froid, casually outwitting tackles, forever finding time and space, never wasting a pass. The goal he scored almost on full-time was a masterpiece of skill, confidence and power.
So much for Spain. Next came Brazil, against whom you might have expected him to be overshadowed by Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Kaka. Not a bit of it. If anything, the three were embarrassingly outshone by Zidane, as casually in command as ever. His mighty free kick from the left gave Henry his stupendous goal.
And if Zidane, like most of an elderly France team with an average age of nearly 30, was less buoyant in the semi-final against Portugal, at least, with his usual cool aplomb, he struck home the penalty that won the game and a place in today’s final against Italy, where he played with distinction for Juventus before going to Spain.
Zidane is no angel. When provoked, there can be violent retaliation. He was sent off in the 1998 World Cup, playing against Saudi Arabia, but when he was back, he was dominant.
So where should we put him in the pantheon? How would we compare him with two other highly distinguished French attackers, the wonderful Michel Platini, who played so brilliantly for France in three World Cups, in 1978, 1982 and 1986, despite being injured in each; or the extraordinary little Raymond Kopa, who so marvellously pulled the strings for France from midfield in the 1958 World Cup, making most of those 13 goals for Just Fontaine? First, surely beyond argument, must come Pele, although after the death of George Best there were sentimental claims for the position to go to the Northern Ireland and Manchester United man — chiefly, one felt, from those who had probably never seen him play. I had Best in seventh place.
Pele was the refulgent star of the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. At 17 years old he scored a hat-trick for Brazil in the semi-final against France and two wonderful goals in the Stockholm final against Sweden, the first after ice-cold juggling in the penalty box, surrounded by Sweden’s hard men, the second with a vaulting header. He repeated the feat early in the 1970 final against Italy in Mexico City, having dropped out of the two previous World Cup finals when injured.
No 2 on my list was the superbly versatile, endlessly energetic, forever domineering Alfredo Di Stefano, the Argentinian who inspired Real Madrid to win the first five European Cups, giving an astounding performance, the essence of Total Football long before it was invented, in the 1960 European Cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt in Glasgow, scoring three of this team’s seven goals.
If the blue riband of football is success in the World Cup finals, then neither Di Stefano nor Best, who never competed in them, could be considered, but their talents surely transcend such trivialities. Di Stefano left Argentina in his early years. When he became a Spanish international, picked for the 1962 squad in Chile, he didn’t play, asserting that he was injured. The word was that he had no intention of playing for another giant egotist, the manager, Helenio Herrera.
Diego Maradona comes third on my list, an extraordinary combination of sublime technique, acceleration and imagination. Whatever the demerits of the Hand of God goal, his two solo goals in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City remain forever in the memory of those lucky enough to be there to see them.
Fourth, I rank Johan Cruyff, the supremely versatile inspiration of the Total Football teams of Holland and Ajax. His imagination and anticipation were remarkable. The goal that he conjured up with his lieutenant, Johan Neeskens, against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup in Dortmund was a marvel of economy, speed and ultimate power. Although a centre-forward, Cruyff could pop up anywhere across the attack, or behind it, to send the team away.
His great rival was Franz Beckenbauer, to be seen throughout this World Cup, whose organisation he inspired, seated among the good and the great. Beckenbauer, as a teenager, virtually invented Total Football, believing, as a libero, that there was nothing to stop him breaking into attack in the manner of the Italy left-back with the ferocious right foot, Giacinto Facchetti. And so he would prove both for Bayern Munich and, when finally allowed to express himself, with West Germany, whom he captained to success against Cruyff and Holland in the 1974 World Cup final.
In sixth position I put Stanley Matthews, the idol of my schoolboy generation, and a hero still when one became a journalist. I had the great joy of seeing him, aged 41, turn Brazil’s left-back, Nilton Santos, inside out at Wembley.
Hungary’s Ferenc Puskas, with his astonishing left foot, comes in eighth place; Arsenal’s Alex James, the architect of their prolific attack in the 1930s, ninth; and Juan Schiaffino, a hero of Uruguay’s 1950 World Cup conquest of Brazil who actually had an Italian passport, 10th, although maybe Brazil’s dynamic right-winger Garrincha should have been ranked higher than 11th.
And Zidane? Perhaps he should be equal 13th with Platini (Kopa is 17th). Each would be in distinguished company.
