Real may have won the Champions League, but Zinedine Zidane is no messiah in the guise of a coach

Football is beautiful and beguiling, but the game can also be brutally cruel, as on a rambunctious Saturday night in Milan, when Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo edged past Diego Simeone and his valiant Atletico Madrid to lift the European Cup. Yet, for much of the evening, Madrid’s Undecima (the 11th) looked unlikely.

Their crosstown rivals applied Cholismo (the Spanish philosophy which emphasises strength of character) in the truest sense of the word. Atletico were a team working in unison – a well-drilled and precisely-instructed block that both defended and attacked meticulously, the result of hours spent on the training pitch under Simeone's watchful eye.

In fact, Atletico also displayed a lot of attacking intent, with sumptuous passing at times. After the 90 minutes had passed, Atletico had 51% of ball possession, up from their combined 25% average against FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich in previous rounds of the Champions League. They ran 9.5 kilometres more than their opponents.

Real implodes but still wins

At times, Zidane’s touchline agony was overt. The Frenchman was frustrated, if not exasperated. He paced up and down in front of his technical area, one moment clapping his hands, then pointing this way and that, in disbelief at his team’s ineptitude.

In the second half, Real conceded a penalty and, eventually, an equaliser from substitute Yannick Carrasco. Their implosion belied the club’s proud European heritage. Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo, supposedly a galactic trio, were peripheral. They contributed little in attack and failed to track back.

Zidane’s response to Atletico’s steamrollering dash and drive was peculiar. He took Real Madrid back to the time of his reviled predecessor, applying many of the textbook concepts and changes of the Rafael Benitez era. Real Madrid sat deep. Brazilian Casemiro marshalled the midfield. The novice coach also substituted his French striker to reconfigure the balance of his starting eleven.

Shockingly, as Carrasco scored deep into the second half and prolongations loomed large, Zidane, by the 77th minute mark, had used up all his substitutions, a schoolboy error of an astounding naivete. But Ronaldo (and, earlier, the goalpost) bailed out the manager and Real Madrid from the penalty spot during the shoot-out. Till then, the Portuguese had limped over the pristine pitch of the San Siro stadium, a mere shadow in a cast of under-performing prima donnas. CR7 had simply not been in a state to play.

On the night though, it proved enough to destroy Simeone’s doctrine – exemplified in the romantic notion that rigour and resilience can triumph over economic imperatives and the overall might and myth of a behemoth. But Zidane, as a coach, was bewilderingly poor.

Zizou has miles to go

In January, Madrid had welcomed Zidane as the new messiah in the Spanish capital. A fortnight earlier Real's larger-than-life chairman Florentino Perez had said that Zidane was not the solution to Real’s manifold woes. Perez has a knack for doing exactly the opposite of what he says. At his first Press Conference, Zidane, gave a timid and faltering speech sitting next to his bread master, talking about his gratitude for his appointment.

True, the Frenchman won over a dressing room that had turned toxic under Benitez. The players didn’t accept the Spaniard’s authoritarian methods, akin to children rejecting a wicked stepmother. Zidane did posses that benign touch, so associated with Carlo Ancelotti, who wielded popular power and charisma. The 43-year-old had played with captain Sergio Ramos and had been an assistant coach under Ancelotti when Real Madrid won their 10th Champions League title in 2014.

Zizou is, however, no pioneer. Upon his arrival he implemented a 4-3-3 system, a scarcely revolutionary feat. Zidane’s personality has been instrumental in propelling Madrid to stability, and, now ultimately, European glory.

At the pre-match press conference, Zidane got a cheeky question: what did he think about the praise and wishes he had received from Marco Matterazi? The two players are in a protracted existential entanglement after Zidane’s infamous head-butt in the 2006 World Cup final. Zidane just shrugged and brushed off the question, emphasising the hard work his players had done in a diatribe of platitudes.

Yet, he demonstrated a calm demeanour when responding. In his playing days, Zidane was often arrogant and aloof, slightly explosive. In spite of his stardom, he had always invoked a tragic air as a player. In Milan, his newfound maturity in his coaching role reflected on his team. Apart from the occasional spell of nervousness and irritation, Zidane remained composed on the sidelines. His players responded by not faltering and folding in moments of dire need.

Real Madrid and their coach may have conquered Milan and Europe, but there is no Zidanésque coaching alternative to Diego Simeone’s cholismo yet. Because Zidane is still imperfect in this his new role.