Upon his arrival in France, Smaïl Zidane, father of Zinédine, probably did not think he was living a waking dream thanks to his son. Not that he didn’t believe in his boy’s talent, far from it. However, poverty and hardship took over his life for a very long time and he might not have imagined being able to offer the last of five children the means to win the stars by enrolling him in the training center of the AS Cannes.
In 2017, Smaïl wanted to tell the hidden face of the Zidane family. The one that Zinédine fans have long ignored. Through an autobiography titled “On the Stone Paths”. Before really settling in Marseille, the father of the ex-number ten of the Blues worked as a worker in Saint-Denis, which would later become the scene of his boy’s glory with the France team in 1998. “In order not to go to these hotels which oblige their customers to eat at home, which further increases the price of the pension, I decide to sleep on the construction site, Porte de Clignancourt, a stone’s throw from the future Stade de France in Saint -Denis”reveals Smaïl, making it clear, by his words, how far we were still from the dream life.
Poverty and the bare minimum to live
This one even revealing by his writings the destitute place in which he spends his nights: “Every evening after work, while my colleagues are heading for the metro, I go back to the little corner that I found myself, in an apartment under construction. It is sheltered from the wind but, when it rains, the ‘damp permeates my poor clothes’. Despite his “roof” over his head, Zinédine Zidane’s father deprives himself and is content with the bare minimum, even when it comes to eating. “And it’s not my meager meal — two servings of Laughing Cow, a piece of bread and a banana — that’s going to warm me up!”he remembers while revealing that the winter of 1954, during which he spent his nights in the apartment under construction, had been one of the coldest that the country had known.
“When I decided to spend the winter outside that year, I hadn’t imagined that it would be one of the coldest of the century!”confides the father of Zinédine Zidane, comparing the temperature of Paris with that of Kabylie: “The snow in Kabylie is more forgiving than this frost which paralyzes everything. In January 1954, in Paris, the temperatures drop to -10°C. At the beginning of February, it is -13°C. Abbé Pierre cried it out to the radio: My friends, help! No one should sleep outside! No one… but I’m still here”. Shocking revelations that marked a man and an entire family. Fortunately, this time has passed for a few years.
See also: Excluded Video: Zinedine Zidane: His incredible anatomy!
RF