How good was Nikola Žigić?

In 2011 Birmingham reached the League Cup final and nobody knows why. As often happens for English competitions, fairy tales are so common and many small improvised Cinderella beat top clubs, or they show off for an episode, a player, a stunning goal. Birmingham in 2011 became famous in a different and more obvious way: they beat Arsenal in the final 2-1 and raised the Cup, while in the Premier League ended his season in 18th place being relegated to the Championship. Serie B plus qualification in the Europa League. English stuffs.

The final of the 2011 Carling Cup was played at Wembley on February 27th. The first Blues goal was scored by Nikola Žigić with a typical "Zigic-style" goal: on the corner’s developments, a header by Roger Johnson is collected inside the small area by Žigić, which is simply the highest. This physical advantage allows him to arrive first on a ball on which he was also rushing a young Szczesny. Thanks to his 2.02 meters, Žigić, however, managed to surmount every opponent who tried to climb on that blue mountain, which spurred the ball behind the Arsenal goalkeeper bringing the lead for Birmingham.

  

If you stop the video at the moment of Žigić's detachment you can see the exact replica of the Géricault's painting 'The Raft of the Medusa' with Žigić in the role of the one who waves a Valencia shirt.

That 2010-2011 was the first season for Žigić in England. He arrived from Valencia thanks to a free transfer (or for £ 6 million, there is a mystery that hovers around his purchase) and had taken the field for the first time with the Blues shirt in the match against Stoke City on 16 August 2010: the partial result, when Žigić mad his debut, was 2-0 for the Potters. In the end, Birmingham managed to draw 2-2, Žigić did not score any goals but nevertheless revealed: "He injected a note of panic hitherto undetected", the Independent wrote in the post match commentary. In practice, he has sent the opposing defense into a panic, a common thing when you see a 2.02 meter being enter your own rectangle of competence.

 

Leave your fingerprints

Žigić was a striker with two faces: at the beginning of his career he seemed simply relentless and had a frightening scoring average. Born in Bačka Topola, Yugoslavia, on September 25, 1980, son of a footballer and a basketball player, he joined the youth club of his city and soon was aggregated in the first team. In three seasons, from 1998 to 2001, while NATO carried out the Allied Force operation leaving the Žigić family without water or electricity, he scored 68 goals in 76 games in the third series.

But the war continues to haunt Žigić, forced to do the military service in Bar, Montenegro. The Serbian, however, does not stop playing football and wears the shirt of the local club, Mornar, in the 2002-2003 season. Score 15 goals in 23 appearances, earn trials with Saint Etienne and Créteil, but neither was successful. No footprints on the French soil, the two large foots of Žigić return home. Finally, the Red Star from Belgrade notes it, the most famous team for a (very tall) and Serbian player. He is loaned for a season, but after 14 goals in 11 caps the management understands that perhaps it's a good idea to use him in the f irst team. Žigić, on his arrival at the Crvena Zvedza, causes a lineup change to 4-3-3 to adapt the team to his skills: "I know that my body can be shocking for someone, but I try to do my best on the pitch. I'm good at my head because of my height, but I want to train to improve also in the game ball at the foot". Žigić's statement seem like those of a deformed monster who has to deal with his being different. Žigić is Shrek who has just been taken away from the swamp, and luckily the Red Star is the best Fiona possible at the time.

From 2003 to 2006 Žigić scored 47 goals in 79 appearances, wins 2 Serbian championships and two league Cups. The score, the palmares and the height (above all the height) do not go unnoticed. Žigić's head appears high above Serbia, very high, and is noticed in Spain: Racing Santander decided to bet on his centimeters. The impact on the Liga is impressive: Nikola, paired with the tiny Pedro Munitis (just 167 cm tall), scores 11 goals, provides 4 assists and earns 5 penalties during the season. At the end of the same, arrived the call from Valencia.

It's the highest moment of Žigić's career, whose value is worth about 20 million euros. At the age of 27, Žigić can finally play in a prestigious club and show that his potential is over two meters and zero two, the passes with the head or the small reality. The Serbian, however, fails and remains in the limbo of the unfinished, earning without a shadow of doubt the palm of "highest of the unfinished football", for what it is worth. In 2009 he returned to Racing to borrow and began to score with a certain regularity. In the following season he decides to try the English experience going to Birmingham. He will remain there for 5 years, tightening a visceral link with the new reality and earning himself the nickname of Big Zig. Žigić will also follow Birmingham in the Championship, a league in which the English club is still relegated from that time when he won the League Cup thanks to a goal by... Žigić.

 

Being giants

Žigić began to look down on everyone from the age of 16: while the other kids fought with acne and hormones, he had already become a giant of two meters. Given its height, there were alternatives: "I could also choose basketball or volleyball, both are very popular in Serbia" he said long ago in an interview.

If out of the Žigić field is the one to ask help from the supermarket to reach the tuna cans on the highest shelf, in the Žigić field is what you entrust to when you do not have so many choices available: "Players become lazy when you have a player so high available, they are limited to throw along" said Alex Macleish, Žigić's first coach at the time of Birmingham.

Žigić, being enormous, has always had a special feeling with little teammates, a little like what happens with those little birds or those little fishes that swim around bigg er animals: Žigić lives in symbiosis with little three-quarterers / second they turn arou

nd and clean balls, while he is responsible for throwing them on the goal.  A cl assic example of Žigić symbiont was Scottish Chris Burke: in a game against Leeds, Burke flitted around Žigić and repeated it. On that occasion the Serbian scored 4 goals, 3 of which on his head.

Žigić's career was inevitably marked by his height: "I'm much better with my feet than you think", once said to self-defend himself from the criticisms that saw him as the most classic of the boards. But after all, then, being giants is so ugly? It is true that if you are too tall you must lower yourself when you pass under the doors, but the absurd height also has its advantages:

• You can stand above John Carew and get the better: 

• You can form a comedy Alti & Bassi duo with Munitis and try to break through the 'bagaglino': 

• You can boast of being up to Peter Crouch:

• You can take a picture with a giant teddy bear without being ridiculous: 

• You can say that you are the tallest Santa Claus in the world:

• You can raise the Carling Cup by raising at the same time also Oba Oba Martins: 

 

The Žigić's best match

The game that better describes what Žigić could have become is Stella Rossa-AS Roma in 2005. During that match, Žigić showcases all its qualities and also something more. The Serbian manages to get the most out of himself, his career, his technical means. First Spalletti’s Roma is forced to attend the definitive supremacy of Žigić, in a match that also knows of derby with Lazio (the imponderable at 10:43).

 

Fourth matchday of Group E of the Uefa Cup, 1 December 2005, Red Star led by Walter Zenga (!) faces AS Roma, the Giallorossi 23 minutes go ahead with Shabani Nonda (!!) after the mistake of a clumsy Milan Bisevac (!!!). This would already be enough to make a game memorable but still must still be overturned by Žigić. The gigantic number 25 first tries to head, then gives a door to Philippe Mexes (7:07 minute) and almost does not make him own goal. The draw of Red Star passes from his feet and ends up on his head: launch of Dusan Basta (!!!!) for Žigić who relies on Bosko Jankovic (!!!!!), which in turn after two attempts at 37 ' manages to fish his big head (from minute 8:48).

The second goal of Red Star arrives at 78': Žigić is (obviously) tried with a long throw on the band, he is there is not clear why, a bit like Birmingham in the Cup final, but does what he does best. Žigić  throw down Kuffour, the spirit of the next Dzeko takes possession of him who becomes a giant / midfielder and serves with a perfect pass Purovic, jumping all the defense with a single blow (from minute 16:41).

Finally, in '86 Žigić reaches Nirvana: the defense sends a balloon to the stars, the asteroid swoops on the field and enters the orbit of the Serbian. Mexes is swept away, Roma is helpless in the face of that immense power, the planets are aligned and Žigić starts from his left a space rocket that slips under the intersection, tilting the space-time line and making a spinning beer in superimpression, while the commentators scream his name.

Žigić rarely showed such beautiful things during his career. A long and discontinuous path, with some fantastic premises and an anonymous ending. After the start he did not score much in his career, but he still took his personal personal satisfaction as for example taking part in two World Cups (also scoring a goals in the unlucky game lost against Ivory Coast at Germany 2006). Yet his being giant has nevertheless been an extraordinary, almost mystical exception. Žigić has been there, nobody can deny it. Guardiola was also afraid of him when he said it was better to keep him out of the penalty area. Today he has already retired a while, even if some of his peers can still play. Because it was also the highest unfinished of all, but in fact has managed to complicate the lives of several defenses.