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We often see that children of professional players become players themself. One such example is Luca Zidane, Zinedine’s son. He is the goalkeeper of Eibar, a team that is fighting for LaLiga status through the promotion playoffs.
Zinedine Zidane was regarded as the best player of his time. He won many individual honors, including three FIFA World Player of the Year awards. Although Zinedine has four sons and all are playing football, only Luca has a chance to play at the highest level.
Luca Zidane came out of the Real Madrid football academy but didn’t leave a significant mark on Los Blancos. Luca appeared in only two games in three seasons. The lack of first-team football made Luca Zidane think about other options, so the player’s next three seasons were spent at Racing Santander and Rayo Vallecano.
Finally, in the summer of 2022, Luca Zidane signed for Eibar on a free transfer. That move would completely change Zidane’s young career. Luca led Eibar to 5th position in LaLiga2. They finished one point short of automatic promotion, but the team will have another chance to go up through the playoffs this year.
Interestingly, Luca Zidane didn’t start the 2022/23 season as the first-choice goalkeeper. For the first 11 games of the season, 34-year-old Yoel Rodriguez was the head coach Gaizka Garitano’s choice. Eibar didn’t play well at the start of the season, especially in defense, so Garitano started Luca Zidane in the 12th round against Albacete. Luca conceded only two goals in the first five games, and Eibar’s results drastically improved.
In the end, Luca Zidane appeared in 31 regular season matches. He conceded only 25 goals while keeping an amazing 14 clean sheets.
In the promotion playoffs, Eibar are playing against Alaves. In the first leg, the teams played 1-1. The second game will be played on Thursday, 8th June, at Estadio Mendizorrotza, Alaves’s home stadium. One of the players to decide the match could be Luca Zidane.
Luca Zidane’s main weakness is that he is only 183 cm. There have been world-class goalkeepers of that height (like Keylor Navas), but most of them are usually 190 cm at least. On the other hand, their main strengths have mainly been passing and kicking. Generally speaking, however, Luca Zidane is a prototype of a modern goalkeeper that can get involved in every situation.
Champions League Winner | 2017/18 | Real Madrid |
UEFA Super Cup Winner | 2017/18 | Real Madrid |
European U-17 Champion | 2015 | France U-17 |
FIFA Club World Cup Winner | 2017 and 2018 | Real Madrid |
Spanish Super Cup Winner | 2017/18 | Real Madrid |
Certainly, it is too early to talk about Luca Zidane’s future. He has a contract with Eibar until 2026 and is unlikely to leave the club this summer. For Luca, the only priority at the moment is to win a promotion with Eibar. Playing in matches such as this gives Luca Zidane an opportunity to carve a name for himself and step out of his father’s shadow.