"Of course you'd want to coach Mbappe": Zidane

In July, Zinedine Zidane will welcome all the member of the France 98 Association, to commemorate the 25th anniversary since France won the World Cup. In the meantime, the 1998 Ballon d'Or winner has teamed up with Electronic Arts, publisher of the video game EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA), to build a 5-a-side football pitch and give free access to children need it.
To mark the occasion, he spoke to 'L'Equipe' in an interview published on Thursday. "I created Z5 (the name of the complex) with my brothers, because we always said that when I retired, we would open a football center to welcome kids and their families", he explained.
"My initial idea was to do it where I grew up, in the neighbourhoods north of Marseille. We unfortunately didn't have the opportunity to do the first one there ... but we were welcomed in Aix-en-Provence with open arms. When I was young I would have liked to come somewhere like this, but I never had the possibility. We used to play in the neighbourhood, it was all concrete. There were no goals, we made posts with jumpers on the ground".
When asked about his future, he made no secret of his desire to get back in the dugout and back into competition. Claiming to be "more of a coach than an educator", the former Real Madrid player needs to compete "whether it's with clubs or the French national team".
In fact, the Marseille-born player could well see himself coaching Kylian Mbappe, for whom he is full of praise. "When you're a coach and there's a player like him, of course you want to coach him", he stated,
"A lot can happen. It could happen one day. He's a player who wears the French national team jersey well. In any case, I admire what he's doing. It's beautiful, it's strong", he added. While the two of them are undoubtedly two of the most important men in the history of French football, the connection could be the stuff of dreams.