When he started out playing for Cannes, he once had to spend weeks on cleaning duty for punching an opponent who mocked his origins. When he was playing for Juventus in 2000, he got a red card and five-match suspension for headbutting a Hamburg player during a Champions League match.
Zidane was a member of the French football team in the 1998 FIFA World Cup, scoring two headed goals in the final against Brazil, which ended in a 3-0 victory. This earned France its first World Cup championship and it was also the first time in 20 years that a host had won the tournament. Earlier in the competition he received a red card and a two-game suspension in a 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia for stomping on an opposing player for no apparent reason. Reports from people close to Zidane state that the Saudi player in question had provoked him verbally[citation needed].......sound familiar?
Zidane is the first and only player to be sent off in two non-consecutive World Cups[citation needed] (1998 against Saudi Arabia, and 2006 against Italy).