My first Zidane shirt

This was my first Zidane shirt. It is not the earliest one I own any more. I have since picked up a shirt from his time at Bordeaux, and France shirts from before this one. But this is where it started, and I went on to collect the whole France collection of the Zinedine Zidane era. It is one of my favourites. My pick of the lot is either the away version of this shirt or the white away from 2006, the headbutt shirt.

The summer of 1998 was prime teen summer for me, and everything about it was the World Cup. At school it was what we talked about all day, every day, through the build-up and then all over again once the tournament started.

Zidane mattered to me beyond the football. To me he was a Muslim player at the very top of the game, and someone with a skin tone close to mine. His parents had come to France from Algeria. After the final that team was called "black, blanc, beur", a play on the bleu, blanc, rouge of the flag, for the black, white and North African players in it.

The shirt they wore looked back. Adidas and the French federation based it on the one from Euro 84, which France had also hosted and won: blue, with a single red stripe across the chest and three white pinstripes.

It was first worn on 28 January 1998, in a friendly against Spain that opened the Stade de France. France won 1–0. Zidane scored, and it was the first goal the stadium had seen.

The World Cup did not go smoothly for him. He was sent off against Saudi Arabia and banned for two games, and he reached the final without a goal. France got there on Laurent Blanc's golden goal against Paraguay, the first in World Cup history, a penalty shoot-out against Italy, and two goals from Lilian Thuram against Croatia. They were not even in this shirt for all of it. Against Italy they wore white.

The final started with the Ronaldo craziness. Brazil's first team sheet left him out, and half an hour later a second one put him back in. Then Zidane headed in two corners before half-time, in the stadium he had opened in January, and Emmanuel Petit added a third at the very end.

The hysteria around a home win was something. So cool. That night Zidane's face was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. It reached Toronto too. The city showed the final at the SkyDome, and I know that because my brother went. For me that makes it a piece of Toronto's football heritage.

The squad at the Élysée Palace on 1 September 1998, with the shirt held up in the middle. Photo: Service photographique de la Présidence, Archives nationales, CC0.

I love that mine is the no-star version. There is nothing above the cockerel, because the shirt was made before France had won a World Cup. They kept the design until a new kit arrived for Euro 2000, and by then the star had been added.

I think every collector should have one. It is a classic, the design is great, and it means so much. France were the first new world champions since Argentina in 1978. I do wear mine.