Against Getafe this weekend, Zinedine Zidane will clock up 100 matches as Real Madrid manager.
It’s been a difficult start to the current season but so far in his Real Madrid career Zidane has won La Liga, the Champions League twice, a Spanish Supercopa, UEFA Super Cup, and FIFA World Club Cup.
Those achievements are being looked back upon by much of the Spanish sport media, but Mundo Deportivo take a different line. A Catalan and Barcelona leaning newspaper, Mundo Deportivo instead decide to stir the pot and go with a headline saying ‘Zidane, goodbye to Real in 2018?’.
Zidane is said to have ‘more support every day’ to take over from Didier Deschamps as France manager after the World Cup. Apparently this is a rumour growing with determination in France, although nobody seems to have informed France yet.
‘Already for some time in France they take for granted that Zidane will be the next owner of the bench of the French team in place of Deschamps.’
Do they? Well, no, not really. Sure, the French would like Zidane to take the job, many would probably like him to take it tomorrow, but that’s very different from what Mundo Deportivo are claiming.
The most popular manager related story around the France team right now is Deschamps extending and when then will happen.
Mundo Deportivo add: ‘If France offers him the job, it will be difficult for Zidane to refuse and that is when Florentino Perez will have to look for a new coach. His favourite, for a long time, is Low, the German coach who could leave his post in 2018 to go to Real Madrid.’
In France it would be pretty much expected that as long as Zidane isn’t forced out of Real Madrid, and he’s almost a veteran there already, he’s not going to be sniffing around for the national job.
There’s no French ego working behind the scenes amassing a weight of opinion otherwise, especially when it would be four years before a World Cup.
Whilst twists of fate could make the scenario possible, this is all plainly Catalan shit-stirring from Mundo Deportivo.
As the newspaper will have known would happen, their claims have already been picked up in France… so it could become a ‘thing’ in the rumour mill.
That, as far as Mundo Deportivo will hope, may help cause a little uncertainty at Real Madrid.
