Face to face with Zinedine Zidane
He’s also a man who famously guards his privacy. He has hardly ever elaborated on the incident.
When we met in Hong Kong I was expecting him to go through the motions. And be pretty defensive as well, with a journalist that was probably going to bring up the head-butt question at some stage.
He was charming, funny, incisive and (relatively) open. Admittedly, there was a translator between him and me so the conversation was limited, but here was a man definitely at ease with himself and his achievements on and off the field and obviously enjoying himself these days.
As the interview wore on I decided it was time to ask, so almost apologetically, I did. From the chorus of « tut-tutting » from his handlers, I knew I had crossed the line.
But Zidane dealt with it as he always does; he had nothing to say on the matter, and why do you journalists keep asking. Why indeed? Simply because as journalists we want answers. Anyway, to get back to my first point: Just how good was he?