I remembered walking around the nice Perth City appreciating the beautiful cold weather there, my eyes glanced intensely upon the sight of a book store. With my affection for reading, I walked in with great anticipation. My eyes were wide opened when I saw pictures of my favorite player, Zinedine Zidane. Zidane or Zizou is the player who I felt shows great exemplary of wonderful skills that can be found on the streets and transferred it to the field.
It's been an eventful year for me. I had to immensely go through life with the loss of my dearest mum to Leukemia. For almost a couple of months I think, I was so devastated that I had even lost interest in football. But it hit me one day that life is meant to be full of challenges. We learn from experiences, make mistakes and suffer loss and that's how we grow.
As I picked up the pieces in life, I chose football as one of the tools to learn more about life. Learning from Zidane, it makes me ponder that with his great charisma, humility and wonderful talent, he is still a human afterall. He did made a mistake in a spur of moment and many remembered him for the headbutt incident. Anybody in this planet can react in such situation. To me, he is still a wonderful talent who displayed such great skills that made me always looked forward every touches and movement he made on the field. His showmanship, confidence, elegance and the football games to play is just fantastic to observe. In brief, he is a true legend.
The incident during the World Cup Final will be remembered by many for that head butting incident but we must also not forget the confidence and GREAT penalty Zidane took with billions of people around this global world watching him. Such class and skill display act must be cherished as well.
It is amazing when you learn the charity act of Zidane. His charity work includes with 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunos, also known as "banker to the poor". (Muhammed Yunos made micro credit a wonderful tool to help the poor) and raising funds for earthquake victims in Algeria. I felt that it is a great choice that Zidane is currently a Good Will Ambassador in the effort to end poverty.
His participation in local game with the young generation in countries such as one of the poorest countries, Bangladesh and playing a charity game to raise funds for the benefits of children suffering from AIDS in Thailand certainly reflects what type of individual Zidane is. There are hypes and great anticipation about the high potential of New Zidane in the making - Samir Nasri. But to be fair to Samir himself, Zidane will always be Zidane.
For me, as someone with great passion of sharing the wonderful game of football, if I am to meet up with this great genius on the ball, I'll tell him what an inspiration he is and his humility, charisma and great showmanship will always be cherished. MERCI ZIZOU!
"I have won many awards and I am very happy about this, but I am not the best player in the world."Zinedine Zidane
