Because Pep Guardiola is the better manager? Great achievement even with the jammy scenarios. What Zidane does so well is get the best out of his players by keeping them happy and motivated, he's no tactical genius but I suspect the aura he carries as a great player helps him a lot.
Guardiola the better manager? For winning 2 UCL (not in a row) with the best Barcelona squad ever?
They had Messi in his prime, the Spanish Golden Generation which won 1 WC and 2 Euros without Messi, prime Dani Alves, Henry, Etoo....
Still that 2 UCL they won had the Stanford Bridge Scandal, Arsenal's Scandal and Bernabeu's scandal.
Then he went to Bayern Munich, a team that had just won the 6 titles they played their last season, and managed to lose 5-0 by Real Madrid in UCL. He didn't even get to a UCL final in all his time there, and only managed to win Bundesligas, that is inevitable when you manage Bayern Munich.
Then he went to City, that had already the best squad in the PL and spend more than 600M in 2 seasons, only for winning 1 PL in 2 years.
And Zidane got to a Madrid side that was 10 points below Barca in La Liga. In half a season he managed to end only 1 point behind Barca in La Liga, and won the UCL, Supercups and CWC.
The next year and his first complete season in Madrid, he managed to won 5 of the 6 tournaments he played, including back to back UCL and La Liga.
And in his 2nd complete season he won 3 UCL IN A ROW! And will very probablly win the Supercups and CWC...
Come on...
I'd hesitate to put him in the same bracket, to be honest, a bit too early for him. Not only was Zidane not comparable to someone like Cruyff as a player, but rather a tier below — as a manager and mentor and thinker and founder of the Cruyffian Barçajax school of football, he hasn't created a lasting legacy in comparative terms considering the latter helped set into motion several series of events that culminated in some of the most iconic club and national teams of all time. And that's with all due respect to Zidane, mind - one of the 15-ish greatest footballers of all time, and an outstanding Champions League manager, thus far — it's just that the bar to Cruyff level in terms of far-reaching influence is astronomically high (extending from his playing days to the likes of Van Basten and Rijkaard and Bergkamp at Ajax — and Guardiola and Xavi and Messi at Barcelona), and cannot be compared with someone whose tenure as a first team manager spans across a minuscule 2½ seasons.
Come on! As a player, for me Zidane was better but it can go either way, both are Top 5 in history.
But to say that Cruyff is not comparable to Zidane as a manager is ridiculous.
He managed Barcelona for 8 seasons, having the team known in that time as Barcelona's Dream team. He had in his teams players like Maradona, Romario, Laidrup, Stoichkov, Guardiola, etc...
In Ajax as you stated he had Van Basten, Bergkamp, Rikjaard, etc...
Still he only managed to win 1 UCL in all his career as a manager. Zidane has already won 3!
Please, be serious...
He was better than Cruyff as a player, dragged a team that was stuck in groupstage without him (WC 2002, Euro 2008) to both World Cup and Euro glory, scoring 3 goals in the WC final
Cruyff couldn't win a WC with a team that made the final without him in 1978.
Cruyff is all myth no substance, people overrate him for his name and the supposed impact his philosophy (it's not actually is) and blablabla.
Cruyff has nothing over Zidane, played in an easier era and has less decisive career moment.
Totally agree with you.
Good grief.
This is exactly why Zidane the player is the most overrated of all time.
Zidane overrated??! If he had won the WC in 2006 he would be up there with Pele. His headbutt made some ignorants like you don't even rank him in the top 5...
Wow. You obviously never watched much of Cruyff because your post is beyond clueless. Zidane was an incredible player but Cruyff was insane. Go back and watch the 1974 World Cup; one of the GOAT performances.
Then you can watch 1998 WC and see real GOAT performances where actually he won the tournament.
When looking at the 1974 WC, I also see a GOAT, and it was Beckenbauer.
In fact Cruyff isn't even the best player of his era, Beckenbauer was...
That's kind of irrelevant though; all a player can do is shine in their own era, against the competition put in front of them. This is why comparing players of different era is absolutely pointless but that won't stop anyone.
Still Beckenbauer played in a poor football era where Beckenbauer was the only player that is among the best in history.
His other rivals were Cubillas, Muller, Rivellino, Figueroa, Tostao, Jairzinho, Pasarella.
Zidane was in the era of Maldini, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Figo, Cantona, Pirlo, Henry, Cannavaro, Nesta, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Nedved, Vidic, Ferdinand, Terry, Gerard, Lampard, Xavi, Iniesta, Beckham, and the list can go on and on. He played in a golden era of football.
And yes, he also played vs Messi and CR7!