Shoots, doesn't score

Monday 9^th October

Zidane: The Movie

Watching Zidane sweat and spit his way around the Bernabéu looking more for space than for the ball was primarily an observation in mortality. It is the knowledge of his career you take in with you that informs its quality as art. It is not a film about football but it is not only the fact that it had a soundtrack and a few lines of Z’s thoughts subtitling the game that made it more interesting than watching England draw 0-0 with Macedonia on Saturday.

You know what the man can do but for the first half he is more like a slightly podgy dad arranging his bollocks, fouling his opponents, shouting “ey” and hunting in a pack: the alpha male on the decline. Even his gait included a habitual foot-dragging, which seemed almost limp-like in close up from behind. Then in the second, he made three long runs with the ball, the first of which, with a feint and a stepover, resulted in a short high cross that was headed in.

Therein lies team-sport greatness: the contributions beneficially change sufficient top-level games given the length of the career. There’s no doubt Z knows he has qualified for the adjective, though –unlike my definition – he has done it with a flourish. His interaction with teammates is minimal. Apart from calling for the ball, there seems little verbal communication. Towards the end of the match, with Real Madrid 2-1 up, Roberto Carlos’ comment or joke, whichever it was, provided the first surprise of the “portrait” with its effect on Z, who was still enjoying the exchange a minute later.

The film ends with Z sent off for jumping in hands-up after a foul on a team-mate. Like most of the rest of the reactions, it is impossible to say whether it was proportionate: we hardly see the football. The match has been reduced to 9 a side. The “subtitles” tell us that “magic is sometimes very close to nothing at all.” As Z walks off, he is applauded by fans and patted by management: a red-carded hero’s farewell. The art is given greater resonance because this game was filmed April 23^rd 2005, fourteen and a half months before his final match ended in similar circumstances. Nevertheless, it is the contrast with other events of the day (inevitable images of war and terror) around the world – in the half-time interval – that brings the greatest perspective to the sight/site of “the end of an era”.