#6 Zinedine Zidane
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If you’re looking for a real rags-to-riches story, put down Jamie Vardy’s acclaimed autobiography and turn your attention to one of the first in the modern football era. Zidane’s parents emigrated to France from Algeria before the Algerian war began and Zidane himself grew up as one of five siblings part of these second-generation Algerians in the destitute Marseille suburb of La Castellane.
This financial and social set-back only fuelled Zidane’s determination to succeed and, after progressing from Canne’s youth academy to the first-team, he went on to become one of France’s most iconic footballers, assuming the role of the nation’s poster boy at the 1998 World Cup, where he scored a brace in the final to earn Les Bleus the title of world champions for the first time ever.
Question marks still hang over Zidane’s temperament with many suggesting he lacked discipline and was a very petulant player. But, as shown by his current successes as Real Madrid manager, he is a football man through-and-through and despite growing up in a family where a Wednesday night dinner of bread and chips was regarded as something of prestige.
He tore through the prejudice and indifference to become one of the greatest pioneers in recent football history.
