Zinedine Zidane

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Zinedine Zidane is a French soccer player. He is best known as the man who scored the winning goal for France in the World Cup in 1998 Zinedine Zidane

Zinedine Zidane was born in Marseilles in France in 1972. He is French of Algerian origin. Algeria is in North Africa and at one time was a colony of France.

Zinedine weighs about 80 kg and is 1metre 85cm in height. He plays as a midfielder.

Zinedine's career started playing for Bordeau, a French team. Here, he played for four seasons and became an international player for France. In 1996, Zinedine joined Juventus, the team from Milan in Italy. since then he has helped his Juventus team mates to win many awards, including the National Championship title 1996/97, the Toyota Cup 1996/97 and the European Supercup 1996/97 .

In 1998, France hosted the 16th World Cup for soccer. The French team were given an outside chance of winning but to everyone's surprise they made it through to the finals. In the final, France faced a head on clash with the defending World Champions, Brazil.

Zinedine Zidane's two headers stunned Brazil in the first half of their championship match on July 12 at the Stade de France just outside Paris. These goals gave the French a 2-0 lead. A third goal was added by the team in the second half to win. the French team had beaten the strongest team in the world!

Zinedine Zedane in action at the World Cup 1998.

Millions of fans packed the Champs D'Elysées to celebrate around the Arc de Triomphe.

The picture shows the jubilant French players kissing the world's most desired trophy following their 3-0 World Cup championship victory over Brazil. AP/Wide World Photos

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