nietzsche wrote:Zidane was pure class.
I didn't get to see Platini (I'm not as old as betiko), I really didn't get to see Maradona either.
I haven't seen another player like Zidane. Maybe in the end Messi or Cristiano will end up with more titles (most likely no WCs though) and you can say Messi might be more decisive, but Zidane was pure class. Making Football look like ballet somehow.
I'm a fan of the heroics, and Zidane taking France to the final after returning to the national team, being his last tournament, that was a moment that had me about to come so hard I was going to make a hole in the roof. That header, was a good header, Bufon was simply incredible that night.
And then the other header. Heartbreaker.
I didn t really get to see platini but mainly because I wasn t too much into football when I was a kid. I did get to see maradona a bit... Van baasten... Those guys were incredible!
The thing with Platini is that he was a trail blazer... France had always been pretty shitty and had never won anything. During his years, there was the 82 wc in spain, where we were beating west germany 3-1 in semi finals, and after some horrible actions that injured some key players without germans getting sent off, they ended up equalizing 3-3 and beating us on penaltys. In the 84 eurocup france won, and in the 86 wc france eliminated brazil in quarter finals, then in semi finals got to play again west germany and lost again!
So platini= 2 wc semi finals and 1 eurocup title
Zidane= 1 wc final, 1 wc title and 1 eurocup title
On the paper, Zidane wins... But as I said, Platini s generation were trail blazers.
What is strange, is that between these 2 generations we had the Cantona generation, and for some reason, in spite of having good players they were total shit.
Anyway, i think that what the zidane generation did has been totally eclipsed by the xavi-iniesta generation in Spain. 2008 eurocup, 2010 wc and 2012 eurocup. That team was just unstopable and won 3 major titles straight... No one had ever done that before. I m happy their run ended this year though. Germany had been the long time second in spite of having a great generation of players, they deserved to be rewarded.