Football has always been about the glory with high-pitched moments and actions magnified in front of a global audience. Those who change the course of a match’s outcome become legend, and legends never die — especially if those legends are then cast in bronze and placed outside a stadium.
These are 10 of the most stunning sculptures of footballing legends that have achieved immortality through the form.
Twenty-one-year-old Enzo Alan Zidane Fernandez, known more commonly as Enzo, was handed his senior Real Madrid debut by manager and father Zinedine Zidane on Wednesday. With Madrid holding a 7-1 advantage in their Copa del Rey fixture following the first leg, it was something of a training exercise against Cultural Leonesa, a club in the third level of the Spanish football league system.
With the approach of El Clasico everything must go under the microscope. The designated referee for the match, Carlos Clos Gomez, has not been left unturned in that regard. According to some, Clos Gomez exhibits a distinctly pro-Barcelona flair, and they’ve got the statistics to prove it.
Having represented Spain 100 times and having appeared for Barcelona in almost 600 matches, center back Carles Puyol squared off against some of the world’s greatest players in a senior career that ran from 1999 to 2014.
The three-time UEFA Champions League winner and 2010 FIFA World Cup champion was himself on UEFA’s Team of the Year on six different occasions, so there’s probably no better judge of talent than Puyol himself.
Listening to Zinedine Zidane’s post-game press conferences after Real Madrid drop points is kind of like listening to a broken record. After Real’s 3-3 draw with Legia Warsaw in Poland, Zidane once again came out and used the same excuses to describe his team’s performance. There was a:
It was surprising to see Zinedine Zidane given the manager’s position at Real Madrid after the sacking of Rafa Benitez. His only previous experience was in charge of the reserve side, Real Madrid Castilla, for 18 months, and his record didn’t speak well for himself.
What would’ve otherwise been a non-story had Real Madrid managed to hold on to their 2-1 lead over Las Palmas on Saturday, Cristiano Ronaldo's 72nd minute substitution has since blown up following Sergio Araujo’s 85th minute equalizer.
Las Palmas held Real Madrid to a 2-2 draw, diminishing Los Blancos' lead at the top of the La Liga table to a single point. The main talking point from the match has now switched to Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane's decision and Ronaldo's reaction.
Michael Laudrup was a sensational playmaker for Juventus, Barcelona, Real Madrid and the Denmark National Team during his extensive playing career. Lauded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Laudrup earned his fame as a phenomenal passer of the ball.
As recently as January 2016, Real Madrid were a club in crises. Having been defeated 4-0 by Barcelona in late November, kicked out of the Copa del Rey in the round of 32 after fielding an ineligible player and dropping points to both Villarreal and Valencia in the space of a few weeks, manager Rafa Benitez was given his marching orders on January 3rd.