Zinedine Zidane will find it hard to head Real Madrid

Zinedine Zidane is back, and how. The legendary Frenchman who regaled one and all with his majestic skills as a player has returned in a new avatar. For those of us who felt a sense of void following Zidane's unceremonious exit from the World Cup final in 2006 and his subsequent retirement, there is reason for cheer. The inimitable "Zizou", as Zidane is fondly called, has never been far from the spotlight, and has now been offered a major assignment: that to coach Real Madrid - the richest club in the world.

For Zidane's fledgling coaching career, which has only seen him manage Real's feeder team Castilla and being Carlo Ancelotti's assistant when Real won the UEFA Champions League and Copa Del Rey in 2014, it doesn't get bigger than a job as the head coach of Real's first team. Real too, on the other hand, could hardly have got a bigger name in world football than Zidane as the coach. It's a win-win situation!

Indeed wins are what Real fans would be hoping for with their favourite Zizou, who had served the club with great distinction as a player, taking charge at the Santiago Bernabeu, now as a coach. And with Real notching up an emphatic 5-0 win over Deportivo La Coruna in its first match under Zidane, the club's good old days may just be around the corner. The victory catapaulted Real to only a point adrift of second-placed Atletico Madrid in the La Liga, and marked the strong statement of intent by the French master.

However, Zidane wasn't carried away by the explosive start to his coaching stint at the Bernabeu. He insisted that the only thing that changed at Real is the manager and vowed to maintain the high standards set during the rout of Deportivo.

Zidane has been one of the most affable characters around and a darling of his teammates, and this promises to go a long way to ensure his success in charge of Real. This was borne out by Real goalkeeper Keylor Navas, when he told Marca: "He (Zidane) told us to be relaxed, to put in our best effort and enjoy ourselves." Navas said he was impressed by Zidane's confidence.

However, managing Real Madrid isn't the easiest job in the world, not with a maverick like Cristiano Ronaldo around, and Zidane knows that. He has to tame tall egos and bring out the best from them. It is something that his predecessor Rafa Benitez could not and had aroused the ire of several top players of the club including Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, James Rodriguez, and Karim Benzema. In fact, the combustible Ronaldo, is known to have severely disapproved of Benitez's training methods. When the players exhibit such disdain for the coach, it is a recipe for disaster. And disaster struck when Real was trounced 0-4 by its arch-rivals Barcelona in November. The club's performance under Benitez has been far from satisfactory and it was only a matter of time before Benitez was relieved of his duties.

The biggest test for Zidane at the Bernabeu would be how well he handles star tantrums. Zidane, the star player, didn't exactly have a smooth relationship with France manager Raymond Domenech during the 2006 World Cup campaign. Now he finds himself at the other end of the pole, having to manage the likes of Ronaldo, Ramos, Benzema and others.

Curiously, during Zidane's first training session as Real coach, Ronaldo was photographed handing Zidane his practice bib, while looking the other way. Some of us may smelt a whiff of controversy. It only shows what a big snob Ronaldo was, some argued. Is there merit in their argument? Perhaps there is. But we may be reading a bit too much into the photo, Ronaldo's infamy as a difficult man to manage adding to it, no doubt. However, Zidane is making the right moves, or at least saying the right things to keep his number one forward in good humour.

"Cristiano is more than non-transferable," Zidane was quoted as saying by the BBC on Friday. "He is the soul of the team. He's going nowhere," the new Real coach added.

In fact, Zidane's former teammate at Italian side Juventus, Ciro Ferrara feels the Frenchman is not likely to be intimidated by Ronaldo, rather it would be the other way round.

If handling star tantrums is not enough, Zidane would have to adjust to a whimsical boss in the form of Real president Florentino Perez, who has almost made it his hobby to sack managers. So when Benitez was fired only after seven months, it didn't come as a big surprise. Even Benitez's predecessor Ancelotti was dumped by Perez, though Ronaldo had wanted the Italian to stay. Zidane, now is the 11th coach appointed under Perez in 12 seasons at the club. No manager has lasted more than three seasons at Real under Perez.

For now, Perez may have called Zidane "one of the greatest figures in football history" and told him: "This is your stadium, your club, you have all our confidence..." but it won't take much for the Real president to lose interest in a manager.

So the three-time world footballer of the year would have to deliver with hardly any margin for error.

Another challenge that Zidane has to overcome is that a successful player doesn't always make a successful coach as well. Diego Maradona couldn't do it, nor could Marco Van Basten. Zidane would want to be more like Franz Beckenbauer and Mario Zagallo, both of whom won silverware at the highest stage both as player and coach (Beckenbauer won the World Cup with the erstwhile West Germany, as a player in 1974 and as a coach in 1990; Zagallo won the World Cup with Brazil as a player in 1958 and 1962 and as a manager in 1970 and as assistant coach in 1994).

It will be interesting to see how Zidane plans to counter Lionel Messi when his team comes up against Barcelona in the El Clasico next. Zidane and Messi, both in their prime, playing in the same match would be every football fan's greatest fantasy. That contest may not happen, but now with one of them controlling proceedings from the outside the field and another contolling proceedings inside it, a humdinger of a contest is still on the cards. Zidane's success at the Bernabeu would, to a large extent, depend upon how well he manages to throttle Messi.

Zidane, without a doubt, faces an uphill task and a real challenge. The Real job is certain to be one of the hardest things Zidane will have to handle, but it is not Zidane-like to get overawed by odds. He never was as a player, and it is not expected that he would be as a coach.