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Is Zidane underrated?
- Updated: November 28, 2016
Zinedine Zidane has won the Champions League and steered Real Madrid to the top of La Liga. But do his critics have a point? We take a look at the debate…
Zinedine Zidane won the Champions League four months after taking over at Real Madrid. He followed that up by beating Sevilla to lift the UEFA Super Cup in August.
This season he’s guided his team to the top of La Liga, where they’re six points clear of the competition. Real are unbeaten in 31 games in all competitions and they’re into the knockout stages of the Champions League.
And he has managed to do so despite some key injuries this season.
Left-back Fabio Coentrao has missed 10 of Real’s 13 league games. Defensive midfielder Casemiro has missed eight. Keylor Navas has missed five, while Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Isco, Marcelo, Pepe, Alvaro Morata, James Rodriguez, Toni Kroos and Raphael Varane have all missed game time, too. Plus, he’s now going to be without Gareth Bale for a couple of months.
Most managers would love to achieve the feats he has in their entire career, let alone in under a year of managing a big club.
Yet, in Spain, there is still an impression Zidane has been a little fortunate, that he is mostly about managing egos and isn’t the best of tacticians.
Zidane may keep things more simple than the likes of Pep Guardiola – but he has made some important changes to his team to get the most out of them.
Against Atletico Madrid recently, he changed the formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-1-1. Benzema was recovering from an injury, so Zidane played Ronaldo as a centre forward with Isco in a free role behind him. Bale and Lucas Vazquez played as traditional wide players.
It was a huge success, with Real winning 3-0 at the …
