One part of the trouble is that he is a man, not an infallible being who landed on this planet from the planet Krypton. As such, he is foredoomed to fall short of our expectations. The other part of the trouble is that Zidane knows perfectly well that he has been seen by many as something more than a man. And while it is unquestionably good for humans to have other humans to admire, it is not necessarily good for the human who is being admired.

The tension between being a real person who does things such as fail and defecate, and being a person who is seen as a god, is almost impossible to deal with. (I say this from observation alone. I have never been worshipped as a god myself. Like that of riches beyond the dream of avarice, this is a test that life has yet to put me through. Like us all, I am ready for the test, quietly confident of passing it with flying colours.)

But what happens when you start to believe in all this self-as-god stuff yourself? That way madness lies. The smartest among the worshipped become actively hostile to their own worshippers. Bob Dylan, invited to become the spiritual leader of a generation, responded brutally: “I’m just a song and dance man.” He told his followers: “Don’t follow leaders/Watch the parking meters.”

Zidane was less self-aware. Was that the trouble, then? Did he start to believe it? Did he come to accept himself at the valuation of his most besotted admirers? He had already declared that this World Cup would be his last adventure in football. The decision is fine; the publicising of it now seems uncomfortable and selfaggrandising.

And his behaviour throughout the tournament had become increasingly erratic. Constructively skilful players often become violent when their skills are thwarted, whether by destructively skilled opponents, by illegal means, or by their own failings. Zidane had already collected three yellow cards and a match ban before he received the final, fateful red. The sending-off was not a bolt from the blue, it was part of a pattern.

And there was also that extraordinary penalty. Zidane gave France the lead in the final against Italy by taking a penalty, a chip over the goalkeeper from no run-up. It came off, sure, so there is in some way no arguing with it. But it did suggest that the non-running chipper was pretty much in thrall to the idea of himself as a genuinely exceptional person, as someone for whom the normal rules did not apply.

Many great athletes have felt the same thing and many have used such a feeling to reach their greatest moments. Zidane played some intermittently majestic football at the 2002 World Cup and at his peak, as he led France to their victories in the World Cup of 1998 and the European Championship of 2000, he established himself as one of the few genuine for-all-time great players.

Life is full of cruelties and is sometimes most cruel when most generous with its gifts. A gift for the writing of great poetry can be bestowed and then simply removed with the passing of the years. The poet can carry on writing, prolific as ever, but leaving his fans forever sad that he didn’t die of consumption at the age of 24. But at least the poet can blind himself to the truth and pretend that he is as good as ever. That luxury is not given to the fading sportsman. His increasing feebleness is made uncompromisingly plain, not only to others but to himself. The tension between this common experience of ageing and his own vision of himself as a person outside of the common run can become unbearable.

Is that why Zidane snapped in the World Cup final? Is that why he headbutted Marco Materazzi? Had the tensions between the real Zidane and the Zidane of fantasy became too much? One certainty: reality was no longer measuring up to Zidane’s perception of the way life should be.

That headbutt was not a rational act. Nor did it represent a mere Rooney moment — a flash of violent temper aimed against someone who had annoyed him. Rather, it was an act of cosmic discontent. It was a futile gesture of protest against the cruelties of sport and the far greater cruelties of time.

These things affect us all, but they hit hardest at the person who had believed himself immune. Many of the great things that Zidane did were the result of his belief in his exceptional talent, his exceptional nature. But in his last match, it was the belief that he was above the reach of normal men that brought him down. Thus we make men of our gods.