While Real Madrid president Florentino Perez was pursuing Kylian Mbappe even back when Zinedine Zidane was their manager in his second stint from 2019 to 2021, the two obviously never got to work together at the White House, with Mbappe arriving years later in 2024 at the end of Carlo Ancelotti's second stint at the club.
Now, though, Mbappe and Zizou will finally get to work together with the French national team, as Zidane is fulfilling another life long dream of becoming coach of Les Bleus, having already won everything there is to win as coach of Real Madrid - and as the most legendary player in the history of the French national team.
Zidane succeeds World Cup winning manager Didier Deschamps, who, despite his adulation from the international media, is not viewed as a success by the actual footballing brains of France, given how many titles he has left on the table by underperforming at four major tournaments since the 2018 World Cup - and no, nobody cares about the Nations League in a country like France.
Zizou will elevate France further
What French national team fans and star players like Kylian Mbappe and Michael Olise are hoping for the most is a manager who can actually play great, attacking football, dominate even the big teams, and help develop the star players and young talents into something more, rather than just being pulled up by the players.
At his first press conference, Zinedine Zidane said exactly what the stars and the fans want to hear: he is going to have this team playing brilliant attacking football and imposing themselves. Zizou said, via the Madrid Zone, “How my France team will play? I'm motivated by the game, by going on the attack. I was a 10 and what excites me is goals, the game itself. I've been in Spain for 25 years and you know what that means. On the field I was a leader and now I think I can be one as France's national team coach.”
Zidane was indeed the epitome of a leader during his time with both the French national team as a player and at Real Madrid as a manager. As a player, he was not afraid to even let Thierry Henry get an earful when he was not playing smart or working hard enough, and as a manager, even the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale were hushed with great reverence in his presence. He is going to be the best thing to happen to Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Olise, and France.
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