>Zidane never showed anything near the display of tactical intelligence possessed by M. Laudrup, and Iniesta. He was never the best at making key passes, organizing the midfield and was a bit of a ballhog. In 98 France, this was compensated by Deschamps who organized the midfield, and in Juve and RM, he had several other world-class players to tactically organize the game when needed, like Conte, Davids, Figo, Hierro, even compatriot Makelele. Nedved himself, brought to Juve to replace Zidane, played better for them between 2003 and 2005 than Zizou ever did. People who never watched him week after week forget that.
The fact that Zidane played with DMs isn't exactly a concrete example of any tactical ineptness on his part, since he was a classic 10. The role is kind of lost on the current generation who is used to watching teams play 4-3-3s, but to surmise, a player playing such a role in those days was actually given the task of controlling the tempo of the game and moving the ball vertically/horizontally as required, from a tactical perspective. The DMs were generally used to stop the opposition from playing by recovering balls and cycling them back to their own number 10, to start a new chain of playmaking. Hence the term 'water carrier' as used by Cantona for Deschamps.