In a bid to motivate his side ahead of the Champions League final, Zinedine Zidane has taken on the role of Spartan king Leonidas by using clips from the movie 300 to inspire the squad.
The Frenchman leads his side into a second successive Champions League final against Juventus in Cardiff on Saturday, looking to become the first man to defend the title in the modern era of the tournament.
Using a speech from Dilios towards the end of the movie, Zidane has showed his players that video as a source of inspiration and MARCA has gained exclusive access to the clip used by the Real boss.
Zidane isn’t a coach who relies overly on big talk or shouting in a bid to inspire, relying on his sincerity and small gestures to feed his side’s ambition.
The plot of the movie in question describes the story of King Leonidas of Sparta and his 300 warriors who fought to the death against Persian King Xerxes and his army of 10,000 soldiers.
In the speech used by Zidane, he superimposes his own voice over the clip in the film in a bid to remind his players that they are alone against the world, who are desperate to see them fail.
Phrases such as ‘everyone is against us, ‘we are along against everyone,’ ‘we must fight for the team and for our families,’ ‘the media wants to see us suffer and lose’ and ‘the desire to see us fall makes us stronger’ are just some of the words of inspiration from Zidane which crop up.
The Frenchman and his coaching team have been preparing different videos based on scenes from various films to encourage and motivate the side as they aim to become the first Real side in 59 years to do a league and European Cup double.
