Zidane tightlipped about future with Les Bleus
French captain Zinedine Zidane was tightlipped about his future with the national side, but paid tribute to Lilian Thuram after the defender brought his own international career to an end.
French captain Zinedine Zidane was tightlipped about his future with the national side, but paid tribute to Lilian Thuram after the defender brought his own international career to an end.
"I don't want to announce my decision right now. But I will need to talk about it soon", Zidane told AFP in Tokyo Wednesday.
Zidane is expected to meet with the newly-appointed France coach Raymond Domenech next Monday in Madrid, according to the French sports daily L'Equipe.
He paid tribute to Thuram, who announced his international retirement this week at the age of 32.
"I just want to congratulate him for all that he's done for France, 103 caps in the French national team. It was a great pleasure to play with him," said Zidane.
Thuram, who won the World Cup in 1998 and the European Championship in 2000, said he first wanted to retire after France's disastrous World Cup in 2002 when they became the first defending champions to fail to score a goal.
The Guadeloupe-born player scored only two goals in his international career but they could not have been more important - both came against Croatia in the 1998 World Cup semi-finals.
Zidane is in Tokyo with his Spanish star-studded powerhouse Real Madrid for a Japanese tour including two exhibition games with J-League sides JEF United Ichinara Thursday and Tokyo Verdy Sunday.
Real Madrid also did a pre-season tour of Asia last year and some critics said this money-earning business caused them to finish fourth in the Spanish league.
But Zidane denied it, saying: "It's our fault that we couldn't win the Spanish league. It's not because we came to Japan. There's no excuse."
Real's one-week trip is expected to earn them 14 million euros (16.8 million dollars).
Zidane was also delighted with the news that Real Madrid could land Arsenal and French international midfielder Patrick Vieira.
"I will welcome it if Patrick comes to Real. He's a good player, so it's good for us. But I don't want to talk about it because nothing is done yet," stressed Zidane.
Zidane will be available for Thursday's game, while Brazilian World Cup winning striker Ronaldo will be out due to a knee injury.