How good was Zidane in his heyday?

Look, I'm only 17 but from what I've seen he was simply astounding. He possessed a talisman like quality about him that simply lifted his teammates to new levels. Sure that aspect of him wasn't as good as say Maradona but he really was the perfect leader in that sense, everyone just performed better in his presence. Players like Xavi, Pirlo, and in his heyday Steven Gerrard, all possess this quality but not to the same level as Zizou did.

As far as his technical ability was concerned this guy was beastly. He wasn't like Ronaldinho in that he threw around a fury of different tricks and flicks to surpass his opponents but he was still very efficient in that he used 'simpler' tricks to bypass opponents and thanks to his superb sense of timing he always managed to beat players and leave them for dead.

One key thing about him was that he never relied on his physicality. Over the course of history there are tons of players who have exceeded because yes they were talented but also because they were physically gifted. Being super agile (Messi, Maradona, Pele), being super fast (Thierry Henry, Ronaldo, Owen) and being super explosive (Ronaldinho) makes a big difference in football. And I think we can't count it against those that are physically gifted but we should tip our hats off to those that succeed without said gifts. Zidane was never super fast, or super strong, or super agile, or super explosive. Probably the best attribute he had was his sense of balance but asides from that he lacked natural physical advantages. However he made up for his with brilliant vision, movement, positioning and timing.

Especially where dribbling is involved, you really need to be fast, explosive of highly skilled to get past people. And I won't say that Zizou wasn't highly skilled but there were better dribblers. He however always got past people by timing that final touch to perfection. He would always take the ball past his man just as the defender committed.

In my opinion Zidane was better than Xavi. This is mostly because I feel that if Barcelona lost Xavi and ONLY Xavi, they could still function and succeed. Whereas France for example pretty much needed Zidane to do anything. Without him they rarely performed and they flippin called the guy out of retirement to drag their butts to the world cup final.

Pirlo is great but I pretty much put him in the same boat as Xavi, excellent but not as versatile or as useful in the grand scheme of things as Zidane.

Anyways I'm just a big *** fan of the guy and I hope you liked my answer.

The greatest of his generation and one of the greatest of all time

Maybe this will answer your question....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhcM4WP2cTc&feature...