Zinedine Zidane

"You look at Zidane and think 'I've never seen a player quite like that'. Diego Maradona was a great player. Johan Cruyff was a great player. They were different - but with similarities. What sets Zida…"

"He dominates the ball, he is a walking spectacle and he plays as if he had silk gloves on each foot. He reminds me a bit of myself, although I was a bit quicker. He makes it worthwhile going to the st…"

"It's hard to explain but I have a need to play intensely every day, to fight every match hard. And this desire never to stop fighting is something else I learnt in the place where I grew up."

"Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer."

"The greatest player of the past 20 years? It has to be Zidane. He had everything. You never needed to tell him anything as he did it all by himself and knew what was expected."

"Zidane is the master. Over the past 10 years, there's been no-one like him, he has been the best player in the world."

"Sometimes I don't know what takes me over during a game. Sometimes I just feel I have moved to a different place and I can make the pass, score the goal or go past my marker at will."

"I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life. There were lots of kids from different races and poor families. People had to struggle to get through t…"