Zidane Wants Fresh Start in Serie A
Copyright � 1999 Nando Media
Copyright � 1999 Agence France-Presse
MILAN (July 12, 1999 12:52 p.m. EDT
http://www.sportserver.com) - Juventus ace Zinedine Zidane
wants to put a miserable season behind him and
re-discover his winning touch as the Italian football
season gets underway next month.
Zidane won the World Cup final for France last year, but was a shadow of himself the following season in the Serie A while failing once again in his ambition to lift the European Cup.
The erratic playmaker, now training at a team hide-away at Chatillon in the Italian Alps, said: "What I'm interested in is cancelling out the memory of last season. It wasn't one I liked."
Insisting that he is staying with Juventus, he also backtracked on recent comments that he'd like one day to play in Spain, his wife being of Spanish origin.
"I was a mistake to admit it," he said. "It would have been better to have kept quiet about it. You learn something every day ... perhaps there are people who want to send me away, but as long as the club want me, I'm not moving."
Last season also ended with a knee injury and surgery for the
Frenchman, who hasn't fully recovered.
"It still needs time, a couple of weeks for it to be fully back to normal," he said.
Juventus, meanwhile, need to recover from a dismal league season which left them with this summer's Intertoto tournament as their only chance of reaching the UEFA Cup.
"I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far," he said. "It's going to be tough to win the league - AC Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina, Parma and Inter have all strengthened their teams. But we are at their level.
"The important thing will be to not make the same mistakes again. But I reckon that a kick in the head every so often does you good. It brings you down to earth."
He told sports newspaper Tuttosport: "I want to put last season - and my problems, and Juventus' problems - behind me and to start winning. That's what I'm staying for; to win."
