The day Zidane stopped time at Hampden Park

It was 45 minutes into the first half of the 2002 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen. Raul Gonzalez had scored in the eighth minute before Lucio equalised in the 13th minute with a header.

And just when everything seemed to have died down and everyone was waiting for half time, it happened.

It all started with Dimitar Berbatov's offside. Ivan Helguera asked for a ball from the ball boy, he planted it a couple of metres behind the midfield line and moved the ball towards Santiago Solari, who was on the left of the Real Madrid attack. Solari tried to make progress, found Zinedine Zidane and gave him the ball.

Zidane received with two opponents at his back, ran back a few metres on his way to the halfway line and gave the ball to Fernando Hierro, who delivered a cross-field pass that finds the boot of Roberto Carlos. The full-back played it to Solari, who managed to play it back to Helguera.

The centre-back then found Claude Makelele, but his misplaced pass means that Carsten Ramelow was about to steal the ball with just 40 seconds to play in the first half. But Makelele managed to get the ball to Hierro, who again moved the ball back to Helguera.

This is where the play sped up. Helguera opened up the flank for Roberto Carlos, who played it into the middle for Solari and starts a sprint forward. Solari sent the ball to the pre-agreed destination, about eleven metres from the goalline and a couple of yards from the edge line of the box. Roberto Carlos arrived, under pressure, and put the ball towards the edge of the box.

And there the picture came to life. Zidane had calculated where the ball was going to land and prepared his body accordingly. He planted his feet, turned towards the corner from which the ball is coming, moved his arms in the opposite direction to the goal so that physics helped him to gain the necessary momentum, raised his left leg and somehow fired a volley into the roof of Bayer Leverkusen's goal.

"I knew it was going to be a goal as soon as the ball left my boot," Zidane recalled to MARCA that night in Glasgow. "I knew Roberto Carlos' cross was going to be good.

"I didn't think about it and I immediately took my position to shoot at goal. It was a great goal. It was all intuition. The important thing is that it was enough to win the Champions League."

That was the first time he won the Champions League, starting a love affair with the competition.

Vicente del Bosque, who was the coach of that Real Madrid, himself tried to describe the goal 20 years on.

"Zidane's goal was a work of art, pure aesthetics, something of a spectacular nature that is rarely seen in football and even less so in a final," Del Bosque told MARCA.

The goal coming right on half time meant that the admiration for the goal, the echo of the image just experienced, took over the stadium until well into the second half, when the other hero of the night emerged - Iker Casillas.

The injury to Cesar Sanchez, the goalkeeper chosen by Del Bosque for the final stretch of the season, forced Iker to play the last 20 minutes of the final, without warming up and after 55 days of inactivity, with Leverkusen desperately invading his area.

But Casillas, five days shy of his 21st birthday, pulled it all out and allowed the video of Zidane's goal to be displayed forever in the museum of the immortals.

Recognition from MARCA

Should something be done for Zidane after the goal in Glasgow? The question was left floating around the MARCA editorial office. A few months had passed since the masterpiece at Hampden Park, but nobody had forgotten a goal that was the ultimate expression of beauty on a football pitch.

MARCA had an easy solution: Juan Carlos Fernandez and his paintbrushes.

On January 10, at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, the artist unveiled his work in front of Zidane.

The event took place at Gate of the Bernabeu. Luis Figo was there, Ronaldo Nazario was joined by his family, and others were in attendance too.

Finally, Zidane appeared for the occasion, clearly moved by the work of art. Juan Carlos' effort had been worthwhile.