Zinedine Zidane played in three World Cups, 1998, 2002 and 2006, and his record reads 12 matches, 5 goals, one title and two red cards. He scored twice in the 1998 final, both times with his head. He scored again in the 2006 final, from the penalty spot, and was sent off in the same match for a headbutt on Marco Materazzi. It was the last game of his career.
That is the Zidane World Cup story in four sentences, and none of it is exaggerated. Below is the detail: every match he played and the five he missed, why he missed them, the two finals side by side, and what the sources say happened in the 110th minute in Berlin.
Zidane’s World Cup record by tournament
| Tournament | Age | Played | Goals | Cards | France’s finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998, France | 25 | 5 | 2 | 1 yellow, 1 red | Champions |
| 2002, South Korea and Japan | 29 | 1 | 0 | — | Group stage |
| 2006, Germany | 33 | 6 | 3 | 3 yellow, 1 red | Runners-up |
| Total | 12 | 5 | 6 |
Every World Cup match, including the five he missed
| Date | Stage | Opponent | France’s result | Zidane | Goals | Minute of each goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 June 1998 | Group C | South Africa | 3-0 | Started | 0 | — |
| 18 June 1998 | Group C | Saudi Arabia | 4-0 | Started, sent off | 0 | — |
| 24 June 1998 | Group C | Denmark | 2-1 | Suspended | — | — |
| 28 June 1998 | Round of 16 | Paraguay | 1-0 a.e.t. | Suspended | — | — |
| 3 July 1998 | Quarter-final | Italy | 0-0 a.e.t., won 4-3 on penalties | Started | 0 | — |
| 8 July 1998 | Semi-final | Croatia | 2-1 | Started | 0 | — |
| 12 July 1998 | Final | Brazil | 3-0 | Started | 2 | 27, 45+1 |
| 31 May 2002 | Group A | Senegal | 0-1 | Injured | — | — |
| 6 June 2002 | Group A | Uruguay | 0-0 | Injured | — | — |
| 11 June 2002 | Group A | Denmark | 0-2 | Started | 0 | — |
| 13 June 2006 | Group G | Switzerland | 0-0 | Started | 0 | — |
| 18 June 2006 | Group G | South Korea | 1-1 | Started, substituted | 0 | — |
| 23 June 2006 | Group G | Togo | 2-0 | Suspended | — | — |
| 27 June 2006 | Round of 16 | Spain | 3-1 | Started | 1 | 90+2 |
| 1 July 2006 | Quarter-final | Brazil | 1-0 | Started | 0 | — |
| 5 July 2006 | Semi-final | Portugal | 1-0 | Started | 1 | 33 (pen.) |
| 9 July 2006 | Final | Italy | 1-1 a.e.t., lost 3-5 on penalties | Started, sent off | 1 | 7 (pen.) |
He started all 12 matches he played. He was substituted once, in stoppage time against South Korea in 2006, and he was sent off twice. France won 7 of those 12 games, drew 4 and lost 1, scoring 19 goals and conceding 6. He was captain in all six matches in 2006; in 1998 the armband belonged to Didier Deschamps.
Zidane at the 1998 World Cup: a red card, then two headers
The 1998 tournament was his first World Cup, and it was at home. In the opening match against South Africa he took the corner from which Christophe Dugarry headed the first goal of a 3-0 win. He was also booked.
The second match, against Saudi Arabia at the Stade de France, is the one he would rather forget. France were cruising when he stamped on Fuad Anwar and was sent off after 71 minutes. No French player had ever been shown a red card at a World Cup finals before him. The ban was two matches.
France won both without him, 2-1 against Denmark and then 1-0 against Paraguay in the round of 16, the second only in extra time. That Paraguay game could have ended the whole story right there. It didn’t, and Zidane came back for the quarter-final against Italy.
It finished 0-0 after extra time. Zidane took France’s first penalty in the shoot-out and scored, and France won it 4-3. In the semi-final Croatia went ahead just after half-time, and Lilian Thuram scored twice to turn it round, 2-1. Zidane still had not scored at the tournament.
The 1998 final: two corners, two headers
Brazil were the holders and the favourites. The final at the Stade de France on 12 July began with confusion over Ronaldo, who was left off Brazil’s team sheet and then restored before kick-off.
After 27 minutes Zidane outjumped Leonardo to meet an in-swinging corner from Emmanuel Petit and headed France in front. In first-half stoppage time he did it again: another corner, this one from Youri Djorkaeff, another header. Same move, same half. For a player remembered for what he could do with his feet, it is a funny way to win a World Cup.
Petit added a third with the last kick of the game, France’s 1,000th goal in their history, and it finished 3-0. Zidane was named man of the match. That night his face was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe with the words “Merci Zizou”.
2002: one match, not fit, no goals
France went to South Korea and Japan as world and European champions. Then Zidane injured his thigh in a warm-up match shortly before the tournament and missed the first two games. Without him France lost 1-0 to Senegal and drew 0-0 with Uruguay.
He was rushed back for the last group match against Denmark, not fully fit, and played the whole game. France lost 2-0. They went home without scoring a single goal, the worst defence of a title by any champion in the history of the competition. His second World Cup lasted one match.
Zidane at the 2006 World Cup: out of retirement and back to a final
After Euro 2004 Zidane retired from international football. France then struggled in qualifying for 2006, and the coach, Raymond Domenech, talked him into coming back. He returned in a 3-0 win over the Faroe Islands on 3 September 2005, was made captain straight away, and helped France win their group. He won his 100th cap against Mexico on 27 May 2006, and he had already announced that he would retire after the tournament.
The start was slow. France drew 0-0 with Switzerland and 1-1 with South Korea, and Zidane was booked in both games, which meant a suspension for the last group match against Togo. It was played on 23 June 2006, his 34th birthday. He watched France win 2-0 without him.
Then came the knockout rounds, and the best football he had played for France in years. Against Spain in Hanover, France came from behind to win 3-1 and Zidane scored the third in stoppage time. Against Brazil in Frankfurt he was man of the match, and his free kick set up Thierry Henry’s winner.
In the semi-final in Munich, against Portugal, he scored the only goal from the penalty spot after 33 minutes. He was 34, four days from the end of his career, and about to be named the best player at the tournament.
The 2006 final: a Panenka, a Buffon save and a red card
The final in Berlin on 9 July was the last match of his career, and it started well. After seven minutes Materazzi brought down Florent Malouda and the referee, Horacio Elizondo, gave a penalty. Zidane chipped it, Panenka-style, at Gianluigi Buffon. The ball hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced down over the line. Buffon had not been beaten for 458 minutes.
Twelve minutes later Materazzi headed the equaliser from an Andrea Pirlo corner. Italy had the better of the first half, France the better of the second. Zidane hurt his shoulder in a collision after 79 minutes and played on. In the 104th minute, in extra time, he had a header that looked like the winner until Buffon tipped it over the bar.
The Zidane headbutt: what happened and what Materazzi said
A few minutes later, around the 108th minute, Zidane and Materazzi were jogging back up the pitch side by side. They exchanged a few words and Materazzi pulled at Zidane’s shirt. Zidane then drove his head into Materazzi’s chest and knocked him to the ground.
The ball was at the other end. The assistant referee did not see it, and Buffon went to him to protest. Elizondo stopped play and, according to the match officials’ reports, consulted the fourth official, Luis Medina Cantalejo, over his headset. Medina Cantalejo confirmed what had happened and Elizondo showed Zidane the red card. FIFA’s match centre and RSSSF both record the dismissal in the 110th minute.
There were claims afterwards that the fourth official had relied on a television replay, which the rules did not allow. FIFA rejected them and confirmed that the sending-off was legal. France lost the shoot-out 5-3, with David Trezeguet hitting the bar, and Italy were champions for the fourth time.
For weeks nobody knew what had been said. Lip readers hired by three British tabloids came up with a racist insult; Materazzi sued all three and won apologies and damages. FIFA’s own inquiry found no racial slur. Materazzi’s account, given two months later and repeated in August 2007, was that Zidane had told him he could have the shirt after the match, and that he had answered with an insult about Zidane’s sister.
FIFA banned Zidane for three matches and fined him 7,500 Swiss francs. Materazzi got a two-match ban and a 5,000-franc fine. Zidane had already retired, so he served his ban as three days of community work with children on one of FIFA’s humanitarian projects. He never apologised to Materazzi; in 2009 and 2010 he said he would “rather die than apologise”.
It is hard to think of another great career that ended quite like that. We don’t think it spoils the record. It does explain why, twenty years on, people still search for the headbutt far more often than for any of the five goals.
Zidane’s two World Cup finals compared
| 1998 final | 2006 final | |
|---|---|---|
| Date | 12 July 1998 | 9 July 2006 |
| Venue | Stade de France, Saint-Denis | Olympiastadion, Berlin |
| Opponent | Brazil | Italy |
| Result | Won 3-0 | 1-1 a.e.t., lost 3-5 on penalties |
| Zidane’s age | 26 | 34 |
| France captain | Didier Deschamps | Zidane |
| Zidane’s goals | 2 (27′, 45+1′) | 1 (7′, penalty) |
| How he scored | Two headers from corners | Chipped penalty off the crossbar |
| Card | None | Red, 110′ |
| How it ended for him | Man of the match | Sent off; Golden Ball the next day |
Same player, eight years apart, and almost opposite endings. In 1998 he had the final won by half-time. In 2006 he scored after seven minutes, spent the next 103 watching the game slip towards a shoot-out, and then took himself out of it.
World Cup records Zidane holds
He is one of five players to have scored in two World Cup finals, with Vavá, Pelé, Paul Breitner and Kylian Mbappé. His three goals in finals equalled the record of Vavá, Pelé and Geoff Hurst until Mbappé’s hat-trick in the 2022 final took him to four.
He was sent off twice at World Cups, a record he shares with Rigobert Song of Cameroon. He collected six cards in all, four yellow and two red, and when he retired that equalled Cafu’s record for the most cards at World Cups.
He won the 2006 Golden Ball with 2,012 points, 35 ahead of Fabio Cannavaro, and was named in the tournament’s all-star team in 1998 and 2006. France had waited a long time for that kind of player at a World Cup: Michel Platini took them to two semi-finals and no further.
After the World Cup
He never played again after Berlin. As a coach he won the Champions League with Real Madrid three seasons in a row, from 2016 to 2018, which no other coach has done. On 28 July 2026, nine days after the 2026 final, France named him head coach in place of Didier Deschamps, with his contract starting on 1 September.
So France’s road to 2030 now runs through him, and the Zinedine Zidane World Cup story has a second part still to be written. His 12 matches as a player sit with the others on our player profiles page, and the three tournaments he played are in the World Cup winners list.
Sources and method
RSSSF’s match records for 1998, 2002 and 2006; FIFA’s match centre for all 17 France matches at those tournaments; Wikipedia’s pages on Zinedine Zidane, the 1998 final and the 2006 final; FIFA’s announcement of his appointment as France coach.
Appearances, results, scorers and cards were recounted from RSSSF and checked against FIFA and Wikipedia. Only matches at World Cup final tournaments count; qualifiers do not, and goals in penalty shoot-outs are left out. His age is calculated from his date of birth, 23 June 1972. The rules are in How we verify.
Where the sources disagree
The three sources agree on every match, result and goal. They differ by a minute on his first red card, RSSSF gives no minute for his first booking, and Wikipedia puts the headbutt two minutes before the red card that FIFA and RSSSF record.
| Event | FIFA | Wikipedia | RSSSF | Used |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red card v Saudi Arabia, 1998 | 71′ | 70′ | 71′ | 71′ |
| Booked v South Africa, 1998 | 75′ | — | Booked, no minute | 75′ |
| Second goal in the 1998 final | 45+1′ | Shortly before half-time | 45+’ | 45+1′ |
| Booked v Spain, 2006 | 90+1′ | — | 90+’ | 90+1′ |
| Headbutt in the 2006 final | Red card 110′ | Incident 108′, sent off 110′ | Sent off 110′ | Incident around 108′, red card 110′ |