When Zidane Had Hair

Looking back at the last era of “proper” football and what has changed?

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For many young fans out there who turn on the tele and join in on the tribal offerings the “beautiful game” has to conjure, Zinedine Zidane is that fella who managed Real Madrid to three straight European Cups. Looking back a little further, he was a man enveloped in a red mist, where the chest of an opponent came perilously close to his lurching forehead in the small matter of the World Cup final. Push past those heady days (sorry) and he was one of, if not the greatest midfielder of a generation. A time when his smattering of manly ‘head stubble’ was replaced by a jet black, and very much receding hairline.

This was an era where oversized shirts ruled the pitch (and the scrawny bodies of those unlucky enough to wear them); where the Italians, ignoring the previous sentiment, were clad in their suspiciously tight shirts with a headband adorning each of their perfectly maintained manes. I promise I’m not obsessed with hair.

My my, how football has changed. Looking back, it isn’t just Zidane’s follicle growth which has gone through some turbulent years; the game over the last few decades has lost some of its edge.

Those who may not know Zidane, maybe having heard his name for the first time by reading this, are probably under the curse of thinking “football” means something entirely different.

A curse where your pants aren’t the first thing to go on in the morning if, of course, you sleep in the nude. If you can’t figure out what or whom I am referring to by this, the aforementioned game is soccer and you’ve got Trump or Trudeau as dear leaders. However, despite our different sporting loves, there is one blight to our respective sports which has diminished its intensity and value; money.

With the advent of TV deals, multi-million foreign takeovers of clubs and the advancement of media, so that football isn’t about the game as much as it is a brand, the sport has been diluted from its core values. Players, such as Zidane, who genuinely deserved the epithet of great have been replaced by wonderfully technical and skilled individuals, who unfortunately value their influence on instagram just as much as banging in goals for club and country.

That’s not to say that these icons of the early 2000s were saints, we just didn’t see their misdoings, they were idolised for their ability on the pitch rather than that "sick" new dance they’ve created on TikTok. For me, David Beckham was the first in my memory to be more ‘celebrity’ than footballer, but back then, he was an individual, not the majority.

Money hasn’t just changed the embodiment of players, but also that of the clubs themselves. Matchday revenues, despite the extortionate cost of tickets, are now the equivalent of looking through the trash for oligarch owners; where the importance of branding has superseded fan participation and traditions . Does anyone really tune into the final day of the season to see Geordie's crying upon relegation at the Sports Direct Arena? No, we tune in to see them cry at St James’ Park! I could go on about money as a vice of the game but I’d be in risk of sounding like Marx espousing the redistribution of wealth. In short: it’s not good.

Nowadays, while Messi and Ronaldo politely share the FIFA Player of the Year trophy like they’re collecting scrap metal, the frenetic tribalism that defined football seems to have diminished. By this, I only mean the good kind, not where England and German fans set out to attempt a World War One battlefield reenactment in the main square of Charleroi during

Euro 2000 (more on that tournament in another piece), but an embodiment of the players’ attitudes defining the fans’ culture in the stands and down the pub.

As short a time ago as 2005, you could find Manchester United’s Roy Keane and Arsenal’s Patrick Viera emulating their favourite pub stars in the Highbury tunnel, engaging in a slanging match which would lead to their mates yelling, “it’s not worth it”, knowing full well no punches will be thrown. This raw intensity shown by the players, is now carried as a standard by fans. In the past, it was the other way round. That rivalry clubs, or even international rivals projected, was a reflection of the vigour happening on the pitch and before the game.

In the light and airy tunnels of new "super stadiums", which lack that old-fashioned intimacy, players find it easier to make friends than enemies. “Oh we play with each other internationally”: hug. “We used to be on the same team”: hug. “His wife is my ex-wife”: hug. You get me. That intensity shown by players just doesn’t seem to exist and is now carried exclusively by the fans, who probably remember better times (unless you’re a City fan, then you have nothing to remember). Just watch Liverpool and Manchester City lining up in the tunnel before their most recent clash this season. Looks more like a fucking high school reunion than “we’re about to play the most important game of the season”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing this as a shitty break-up text with my first true love. What football has now become still holds a certain brilliance. It will always be the world’s sport; a game which requires two sweaters and few kids who toe punt the ball to no ends to have a good old kick-about.

However, what the professional game now lacks or lost has been replaced by athleticism which never previously existed and a global appeal that rivals those nostalgic feelings. We have to love what’s there; I’ll never be able to rewatch those players strut their stuff again, but the new fellas aren’t all that bad.

Zidane can’t grow his hair back, but i’ll always remember him with it.

Just a thought.