Soccer: Zidane simply magnifique

When Diego Maradona was a boy he nearly died in a sewer in his shanty town suburb of Buenos Aires. The young Pele's skill with a ball was his chance to escape the favela.

Zinedine Zidane, a failure at school, had a similar imperative when he played in the shadows of a drab courtyard in Le Castellane, a lawless housing project filled with North African immigrants in Marseilles.

Now Zidane has made himself a candidate for authorship of possibly the greatest World Cup story ever told. If he can reproduce against Italy the virtuoso performances that destroyed Brazil and Portugal - at the age of 34 - he will make the perfect, almost surreal end to the most beautiful of football stories.

One of Zidane's most intense admirers has seen the dramatic potential. Jamel Debbouze, who won the Best Actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, was stunned by the scale of Zidane's re-invention of himself against the Brazilians, and says: "It is almost impossible to describe the feelings watching what he has done here and what he has given himself the chance to do at the climax of the World Cup.

"It is incredible, magical, because it is a historic moment every time Zinedine Zidane is in a state of grace.

"It spreads something I can only call Zidane-itis."

Christophe Dugarry, who played, briefly, alongside Zidane in 1998 while leading France to their first win in the World Cup, says: "Zizou plays football in another dimension... for the rest of us it can only be a fantasy."

Eight years after scoring the two goals that broke Brazil in another final, Zidane is about to duel for the greatest prize in the game in which he is most celebrated, even revered.

If he wins, the curtain calls will be astonishing because the theatre of world football will never have seen such a rounded performance or stunning final act. The greatest sportsmen of the ages have yearned for such a dramatic moment of career fulfilment only to be ambushed by time. Muhammad Ali descended into defeat and a sad, sick haze. Pele ran out the thread of black pearl playing for New York Cosmos. Maradona, after years of drug addiction, left ignominiously after testing positive in the 1994 World Cup in America.

But Zidane aims to leave at the pinnacle. Aime Jacquet, Zidane's coach when France first reached the World Cup mountain-top, said so when the great man's first international retirement was announced in the wake of the crushing disappointment of defeat by Greece in Euro 2004: "The gap he will leave is monumental".

And brilliant France full-back Bixente Lizarazu said: "When we have the ball and don't know what to do with it, we give it to Zizou. He works it out."

John Giles, the influential Leeds United midfielder who was denied the chance to play in a World Cup by his Irish birth, has witnessed Zidane's extraordinary reincarnation.

He says: "Watching Zidane has been wonderful. It has confirmed a theory of mine that the really great players retain the ability to produce exceptional performances even when they get older; they have to accept that these performances come down to just a few. They cannot be called upon as they once were.

"The conditions have to be right. There has to be confidence in younger teammates. You have to be surrounded by good values - and people willing to do some of your running.

"It would be tremendous for Zidane and for France and for football if he can pull this off. I'm sure his last few years at Real Madrid have been hell. You could see the values of a great team disappearing in the galactico policy, the changing coaches, the obvious lack of belief out on the field.

"You could see it all in his eyes, in his body language. He was saying that for him the best of it was over. Now he must feel he has come home to the best of what he once knew."

Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira acknowledged the impact of Zidane's generalship. "For so long he has been a brilliant player and he made life difficult, if not impossible for my players. He was constantly on the move and changing the game."

Zidane is candid about his re-fired ambition: "I've no intention of stopping now. I'm gripped by an amazing feeling that comes whenever I realise that we are really going for the title.

"There have been some hard years and I really felt I had little more to contribute at the international level. Now anything is possible. After we beat Spain we knew we could do it, we could go all the way."

Teammate Franck Ribery said: "I know I will tell my grandchildren about this. If we win the Cup it will be an amazing bonus; I got to play with Zizou, I got to win a World Cup, sometimes when I think about it, it seems too much."

Triumphant in the World Cup when the Champs-Elysees filled to bursting point, when rockets pierced the sky and you couldn't get a Scotch or a hot-dog in Harry's Bar, Zidane seemed to be sliding relentlessly almost from the moment he scored a glorious goal in the 2001 Champions' League final.

He played just one game in the 2002 World Cup, and spent it in a daze, and then he returned to a Real Madrid breaking up before his eyes.

He was living in the shadows - and then the wilderness when listless France trailed out of Euro 2004. Now he has gone almost full circle - into most French hearts.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of France's far-right party, said it was a bad day for the nation when an immigrant seized the glory of the Republic. On Monday morning, Le Pen's old nightmare is back with astonishing force.

For the rest of us, a fabulous dream continues to unfold.

- INDEPENDENT