And Zidane always seemed to lack a little bit of that tactical nous to me. I think he's an incredible man manager and can manage egos with the best of them, but I'm not sure if he has the tactical smarts a lot of top managers do. He seems like the perfect fit for teams that are basically built but need to get over the final hump.
I think he's tactically very underrated.
You don't win 3 CLs in 2.5 years by just being a man manager.
First of all, his in-game changes were amazing, especially last season. In the PSG tie, he basically won the 1st game (and the tie) by going from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 and dominating the flanks.
But second, and more important, he set up his team to its strengths and understood how it was built - for transition and taking down big teams. In Modric and Kroos he had possibly the world best passing midfielder and the best midfielder at opening passing lanes in Modric. Both good with the ball, both immaculate control, both press-immune. That team was never about possession because why would you want to crawl the ball up the pitch when you have Modric and Kroos to transition it, Marcelo and Carvajal to rip open the flanks and CR7 to exploit it all and destroy teams.
In the build-up, Casemiro went forward, Kroos and Modric dropped lower and that's why Madrid was so good at resisting high press.
On the defensive side, Casemiro dropped low, sometimes playing as the 3rd CB as Marcelo and Carvajal always played high.
This is something that went completely over Lopetegui's head - he played Modric further up the pitch in the build-up (most of the time ball never even got to him) and Casemiro was responsible for the build up with Kroos (Casemiro's possibly weakest area of his game).
It seems simple and self-evident, but apparently it's not. ZZ played the world's best midfield of the last 5 years to their strong sides and they played like the world's best midfield. Lopetegui completely missed the point of having those 3 together and went for his "tiki-taka forever" strat - which was neither dangerous nor a defensive improvement.
Defensively, ZZ played the fullbacks very high up - partly because in-form Marcelo and Carvajal are by far the best full-back pair, and partly because his CB pairing could handle it.
I know people made fun of Madrid's defensive structure, but it was adequate - especially because he knew he had two very different, but absolutely world class CBs in Ramos and Varane. While Ramos was the leader and aggressive as always (mostly stopping potentially dangerous plays before they ever developed), Varane is clean and has fantastic positioning. But maybe most importantly, both are stupidly fast for center backs, and it allowed them to cover huge spaces and almost always be in position on time.
There's a lot of other stuff that went on with ZZ's Madrid - and if you want, I'll go into it and bore everyone to sleep...
But I really do think this (to me) ridiculous narrative of Zidane's being a tactical noob (started and continued by some football journalists) is completely off-base.
It's like he gets stick for not inventing a new and unseen tactic , when there was no need to invent it.
You still need to fine tune your team, to find the right tactic and strategy for your existing team, have good man-management and the right in-game calls.
Yes, ZZ inherited a fantastic team, one of the best ever assembled. But people act like he lucked into 3 straight CLs and a La Liga, when it's anything but. Players bought in, played his system (sometimes defensively suspect, but always exciting and attacking) and raked in historic results.
You don't get that with having a tactical noob leading them.
I don't think he'd invent a new tactic or shape with United or whoever.
But I think he'd bring in the right players to play fast, attacking - and successful football.
