The mood currently taking hold in Paris has been described by L’Equipe as ‘Zidanemania’, so it seems significant that a vigil led by Pope Leo XIV at the city’s Stade de France on Friday night will be comfortably overshadowed by the France national team’s first game under their new manager.The Pope’s appearance, which is expected to draw a crowd of 80,000 to the national stadium, will be televised on France’s second biggest TV channel. But Zinedine Zidane’s return at the helm of Les Bleus, away to Turkey, will be a far bigger deal and screened on the main TF1 network. Next week, attention will turn to the first two Stade de France occasions of Zidane’s tenure, against Italy and Belgium. Tickets for both sold out in record time.Zidane, totemic member of the 1998 World Cup and 2000 Euros winning teams and French footballing deity, has attempted by remove the showbiz from the national team set-up, by banning the media from his players’ arrival at training. That rigmarole had become such a fashion show under his predecessor Didier Deschamps that a blue carpet was laid out for the players on one occasion before the World Cup. But Zidane is celebrity gold himself: bigger than his captain Kylian Mbappe and bigger than the Pope. His re-emergence into Parisian public life has seen crowds turn out simply to see him walk in and out of the French Football Federation (FFF) offices on Boulevard de Grenelle‘Zizou, I love you,’ went up one cry last week in the usually discreet 15th arrondissement of Paris, in front of the FFF headquarters, when ‘ZZ’ emerged, minutes after announcing his first squad as manager. He then spent about ten minutes mingling with the crowd of 100 fans. Shouting, singing and jostling ensued. ”Zidanemania’ as Zinedine Zidane prepares to takes charge of his first game as France boss Zidane’s side face Turkey away on Friday night with their first home games coming next weekTo those of French disposition, there seemed something symbolic about the way the sun came out on Monday – his first day as coach on the grass with his players. ‘An aura, almost a halo, accompanied him,’ wrote the eminent L’Equipe columnist Vincent Duluc. ‘It was a session like any other Monday, but half nostalgia, half new era.’Zidane arrived at 6pm that evening and conducted a meeting with his assistants David Bettoni and Fabien Barthez before France got the first sight of him in the colours of Les Bleus since he walked off into the sunset after the 2006 World Cup. Bettoni, the journeyman player who has known Zidane since their careers intersected at Cannes and who was his right-hand man at Real Madrid, led the session. But Zidane was involved and deeply wrapped up in it all – participating on the grass in small-sided games, shouting ‘quality, quality!’ to encourage greater precision and ‘play, play’ to demand greater pace. ‘We saw that he still has some good stuff left!’ joked Dayot Upamecano, the centre back.He is the superstar of France’s set-up now – an individual so feted that the FFF has felt the need to recruit a personal security detail for him. Given his celebrity, it also seems likely that members of his coaching team will do much of the monitoring of French players.Since the start of the season, Bettoni has covered Germany and Italy, while Farid Tabet, the newly appointed video analyst has watched England and Spain-based players. Stéphane Plancque, another Zidane loyalist from playing days together at Bordeaux and later another lieutenant at Madrid, has covered France and the other leagues. Barthez’s appointment as goalkeeping coach reflects how the ex-Manchester United stopper and Zidane were close during their playing careers and have been regulars at reunions of the 1998 France squad. Zidane is an icon in France for helping win the country their first World Cup as a player in 1998 Zidane’s backroom staff includes Fabien Barthez (left) and David Bettoni (right)The scouting team were impressed by Bournemouth’s Adrien Truffert, whose only previous senior cap dated back to September 2022, and uncapped Lucas Da Cunha, Como’s midfielder captain. Both have earned surprise call-ups by Zidane.Though the national team’s partners EDF Nike and Crédit Agricole all seem pleased by the so-called ‘ZZ Effect’, this story will ultimately become one about results. ‘Our partnership isn’t built around one person,’ EDF observed.And though Zidane’s popularity ratings vastly surpass the departing Didier Deschamps, the 54-year-old faces higher expectations than his predecessor did in 2012 when inheriting the psychologically fragile group which had been eliminated at the quarter finals stage of that summer’s Euros. Zidane has been out of management for five years and the Real Madrid job is the only other senior coaching role of his career. There is uncertainty.His status as a legend in his own right may enable him to extract more from an attack formed of Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue and Olise than Deschamps did. Mbappe, who has been nursing a cold and missed some preparations for Turkey, is expected to start on the left in a 4-3-3 in Istanbul with Ousmane Dembélé central and Michael Olise on the right. Real Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni, who is short of game time after an adductor injury, was the major omission.Everywhere Zidane looks at France’s legendary Clairefontaine base, he is reminded of the glories he contributed to, two decades back – including the replica of the World Cup which he secured with two of France’s three goals against Brazil in the 1998 final at the Stade de France.L’Equipe’s Duluc observes that Les Bleus became The Beatles in that golden summer, with girls screaming at them wherever they went, and that this time Zidane is the Beatles all by himself: ‘Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison rolled into one, with perhaps Barthez as Ringo Starr.’ Those in Paris who see past the nostalgic love story and the beautiful homecoming recall the tepid and hugely disappointing nature of the World Cup semi-final defeat to Spain in Dallas, and how immense a task it will be to navigate the team to the levels of Luis del la Fuente’s reigning world champions’ level. France longs for the second coming of Zidane to yield him another deification. The man is question going to have to earn it.