God wears bleu

The big news last week -- sufficient for the evening French TV news to place it ahead of the Air France crash in Toronto -- was the unretirement of Zinedine Zidane from international football. "Zizou" decided last year to keep playing for Real Madrid but fatique had set in regarding his commitments to the French national team. In some ways it was a strange decision because the old Zizou was still very much around in his brilliant display of physical and mental toughness in the European Championship match against England in Portugal last year.

But his retirement was clearly good news for the Republic of Ireland team, needing a weakened France in their qualifying group for next year's World Cup in Germany. Hence the blow of Zizou's reversal last week, with the resulting burst of enthusiasm bringing Lilian Thuram and Claude Makelele back to the team as well.

One minor bit of intrigue, perhaps worthy of consideration by the Irish fans looking for some good heckles, concerns the precise reason for Zizou's return. To cut a long story short (or rather to cut a story down to terms that our pathetic French can comprehend) it seems that Zizou left everyone with the distinct impression that God, or related divine entity, told him to come back. He then either realised how weird this sounded, or claimed he had been misinterpreted, and meant only to say that his brother had told him to come back. Which does leave open the possibility that his brother is God.

Anyway, here's some sourcing for all this:

France 2: Zidane entend "une voix"

"Une nuit à trois heures du matin, je me suis soudain réveillé et là j'ai parlé avec quelqu'un. Mais ça, personne ne le sait. Ni ma femme, ni personne", raconte le nouveau capitaine des Bleus.

"C'est une énigme, oui, mais ne cherchez pas, vous ne trouverez pas. C'est quelqu'un que vous ne rencontrerez probablement jamais. Moi-même, je ne m'explique pas cette rencontre. Cette personne existe, mais ça vient de tellement loin", poursuit-il.

"Et là, durant les heures qui ont suivi, j'étais tout seul avec elle et, chez moi, j'ai pris la vraie décision de revenir (..) Je n'ai jamais connu ça, j'étais comme interdit devant cette force qui dictait ma conduite, et j'ai eu comme une révélation: j'ai eu soudain envie de revenir aux sources (...). C'est une force irrépressible qui s'est emparée à moi à ce moment-là. Je devais obéir à cette voix qui me conseillait", précise "Zizou".

So you don't need much Franglais to see his claim that he awoke in the presence of a mysterious force, and a few hours later he decided to unretire. But he was backtracking the next day:

"Dans l'article, poursuit le meneur de jeu du Real Madrid, je parle d'une personne. Jusqu'ici c'était quelque chose de personnel, je n'ai pas voulu dire qui était cette personne, mais comme cela a mal été interprété, comme les gens interprètent mal les choses, je dis que cette personne est mon frère. Cela coupe court à tout ce qui se raconte. Il n'y a rien de religieux, rien de mystique".

Nothing religious, nothing mystical -- it was my brother. But we prefer Zizou's first story, not least because it beats hearing God invoked as a justification for war.