Five years after being introduced as Real Madrid coach (interrupted of their own free will for nine months), Zinedine Zidane is getting ready to face a new challenge that can give him a new trophy both to the white team and to their own record: if the Madridistas were proclaimed champions of the Super Cup on Sunday in Seville, it would be his 12th title in 237 games. So far, the French coach has accumulated 235 meetings leading the white first team with the following balance: 155 victories (66%), 48 draws (20%) and 32 defeats (14%). He would be only two titles away from equaling the record of Miguel Muñoz, who in his 14 seasons as a Madrid coach won 14 titles (nine Leagues, two European Cups, two Spanish Cups and one Intercontinental Cup).
The difference is that Zidane has hardly needed that five years to achieve those 11 that equate him in the ranking with Johan Cruyff, who also added 11 championships with Barça. Ahead is the aforementioned Miguel Muñoz and Guardiola (with Barça), both with 14 titles.
However, Zidane’s record is not short. Three Champions achieved consecutively, something that had never been seen with the new format and that you have to go back to the 70s to see something similar with Ajax, first (1971-73), and Bayern later (1974-76), without forgetting from the golden age in the European Cup where whites dominated from 1956 to 1960. Add two Leagues, two Spanish Super Cups, two Club World Cups and two European Super Cups: in total, he has won a title for the white showcases every 22 games he has directed against the Whites. The only thing missing is the Copa del Rey to culminate a spectacular track record. A trophy that, curiously, already resisted him as a white player: he played two finals (2002 and 2004) and lost both …
Behind Muñoz and Zidane there are illustrious names in the Madrid technical saints: Luis Molowny, who won eight trophies, and Vicente del Bosque, who raised one less, seven. They all have the same common denominator: club men who did not hesitate to accept complicated challenges in difficult stages. And they were all champions …
Zidane decided to leave in the summer of 2018 after winning his third consecutive Champions League. He added nine titles when he decided to step aside. The French coach cited personal reasons. “If I think I am not going to win, it is better to make a change,” he assured at a press conference on May 31, 2018, before explaining that he could return (“Of course it may be a ‘see you later’. I will be close of this club always ”). Something that he fulfilled in March 2019 to shape the squad in the last 11 League games that remained. The following campaign won the League again, that of the Coronavirus, a championship with two football stages: in the second period Madrid linked 10 consecutive victories in the last 11 games to secure La Liga 34. Now it comes to Andalusia. First to Malaga, where curiously he won his first League at La Rosaleda by defeating the locals in 2017 to seal the first League after five years. Then, on Sunday, if you eliminate Athletic Club, it will be Barcelona or Real Sociedad in the final at La Cartuja (9:00 pm CEST).
As well His record in finals is striking: he has played nine and won all nine. An incredible plenary session. Guardiola, for example, won eight of his first nine finals. It is a fact that supports his career as a high-level coach, although he knows that one day his first defeat will come. But he looks like a winner in Seville. It will mean that it continues to swell the Trophy Room of the new Bernabéu …
