SOCCER: Zinedine Zidane will not, after all, grace Lansdowne Road in 14 months time when France visit Dublin for their World Cup qualifying game against Ireland, nor will he be available to French coach Raymond Domenech for their meetingin Paris on October 9th.
Ten years after making his French debut, the World Player of the Year in 1998, 2000 and 2003 - now 32 - announced his retirement from international football yesterday, having won 93 caps, scoring 26 goals.
"I have thought long and hard over this decision," he said. "I think that at a given moment you must say 'stop'. It's the end of my international career with the French team. It's the time, it's my time. It's the end of a cycle: there have been some great players who retired in 2000 and 2002, other players are doing it and now I'm doing it. I thought about it before Euro 2004. Independent of the result, I had anticipated quitting the French team."
Zidane's announcement ends what was truly a golden age in French football, during which the national team won the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championships.
Defenders Marcel Desailly, Lilian Thuram and Bixente Lizarazu, also part of that success, had already confirmed their international retirements since France's exit from Euro 2004.
The recently appointed Domenech, successor to Jacques Santini, had met Zidane on August 4th to try and persuade him not to retire, just as he had pleaded with Thuram and Lizarazu to reconsider their decisions.
"He will not play for France anymore," conceded the coach yesterday. "I am sorry about it, I would have liked him to carry on. He thought he had to leave the place to young players."
The Marseilles-born son of Algerian immigrants became, arguably, the finest footballer of his generation, a fact acknowledged by Real Madrid four years ago when they paid Juventus £46 million for the midfielder. His finest hour, perhaps, came in the 1998 World Cup final when he scored twice in the 3-0 win over defending champions Brazil.
"Zidane is out of range, he is unique, the greatest player of all time," said Franz Beckenbauer of the French captain. "He has no equal. He looks more like a dancer than a football player. No one will ever be able to equal his elegance. He is both strong and precise. He is a football genius."
Domenech, then, had to make do without the great 'Zizou' yesterday when he named his squad for next week's friendly against Bosnia-Herzegovina - Zidane's number 10 shirt, though, is "temporarily retired", Domenech saying "we are not going to allocate it to a player for a while, this would put too much pressure on one's shoulders".
Just 10 of the Euro 2004 squad survive, with seven uncapped players included. Liverpool's summer signing Djibril Cisse returns after missing Euro 2004 through suspension.
Goalkeeper Fabien Barthez is the last surviving member of the 1998 World Cup-winning team while Patrick Vieira takes over from Zidane as captain - despite being named in the squad, Vieira will not, however, play against Bosnia-Herzegovina because of injury.
Manchester United's Louis Saha is unavailable through injury, but his club-mate Mikael Silvestre has been dropped, as has Chelsea's Claude Makelele.
Meanwhile Brian Kerr has added Manchester City forward Jonathan Macken to his squad for next week's friendly against Bulgaria after the former England under-20 player was cleared by FIFA to play for the Republic of Ireland.
Macken, who has yet to establish himself at City after his £5 million move from Preston in March 2002, came on as a substitute for England in a game at the 1997 World Youth Championships, but FIFA rules now state that players who have not played in a full international game can play for a different country, provided they were entitled to nationality of that country at the time they played at underage level.
Macken is eligible to play for Ireland through his grandparents and is the holder of an Irish passport.
