Euro 96: Zidane Live At Leeds

In 1996, football came home.  Well that was the soundbite the English press used for England staging the Euro 96 tournament.  On Saturday 15th of June, France played Spain at Elland Road & the game ended 1:1.  It was the only time Zinedine Zidane would ever play at Elland Road but the untold story of that summer was how close Leeds United were to signing him.  Zidane was playing for Bordeaux at the time but his desire to leave his club was not a secret & teams across europe wanted the highly rated midfielder. Manchester United seemed to be leading the chase for Zidane but Ferguson changed his mind after the success of Beckham, Scholes & Butt in the previous season.  Blackburn Rovers came into the race when they invited Zidane & teammate Christophe Dugarry to their training complex for talks with new manager Ray Harford who decided not to sign them.  This is where Leeds United come in. Howard Wilkinson knew he was going to lose the services of Gary McAllister & Gary Speed who were two important players in his 1991/1992 title winning team .  The pair had made it clear to Wilkinson that it was time to move on & Speed transfer to Everton had been lined-up for months.  Wilkinson's main concern though was how to replace McAllister.  Scouts recommended the names of Robert Prosinecki and Zinedine Zidane.  Bordeaux told Leeds that Zidane was available but they had to beat Juventus to sign him.  That didn't worry the Leeds manager who had snatched Eric Cantona from the hands of Sheffield Wednesday four years earlier.  It was rumoured that Leeds had a meeting with Zidane's agent during Euro 96 where the club heard the news that Zidane prefered the move to Juventus because he wanted to follow in the footsteps of Michel Platini who had been a superstar in Turin.  Juventus paid Bordeaux £3.2 million for Zidane who became a football legend, Leeds paid Manchester United £4.5 million for Lee Sharpe who became Howard Wilkinson's final ever signing at the club.

Below is a highlight video of Zinedine Zidane playing at Elland Road for France against Spain.