On Saturday afternoon against Getafe, Zinedine Zidane celebrates 100 matches on the bench with Real Madrid.
He has already won two Champions Leagues, La Liga, a Club World Cup, two UEFA Super Cups and a Supercopa de Espana, and at the time of his most recent title win, against Manchester United in August, he’d amassed as many titles as games he had lost as coach!
Such a ridiculous stat really does hammer home why Florentino Perez was right to employ Zidane in the top job after dispensing with Rafael Benitez’s services. Though he was ‘untested’ at the top level at the time, it was clear that he had the tools to do the job.
Perhaps his biggest success is being able to command the respect that Benitez never could. As a player of world class renown, there was an instant connection with his staff and the hushed silences that greeted his team talks were a mark of reverence.
At one with his players from the beginning, his tenure has been marked by a common sense attitude and the delivery on a promise that everyone in his squad was important and would get minutes.
Never before had we seen such large-scale rotation, and certainly not successful to the extent that Real’s has been over the past 18 months.
His first real test came at the beginning of the current campaign when injuries have hit hard and a slight dip in form has seen some surprising results.
Those that have been only too willing to jump on the ‘told you so’ bandwagon clearly know nothing about football however, because as every team and manager knows, there will always be a dip in such continued excellence.
How Zidane brings his team out of the other side will mark the next few weeks and months. Though they remain seven points from leaders Barcelona at the time of writing, clearly that’s not an insurmountable gap.
It’s easily forgotten that in his first half season, Zidane’s Madrid actually earned more points that league winners Barca, and despite being 10 points behind with six weeks left of the season, Real closed the gap to within a point.
Had the season been a fortnight longer, there’s every reason to believe that Los Blancos would’ve pipped the Blaugrana.
With the exception of a very small number of coaches, none can compare to Zidane in terms of titles won in their first 100 games and arguably, his legacy will live on longer than most too.
Not bad for a rookie!