Picking one would defeat the purpose of namechecking them both.

What's certain is that the number of people who could confidently have drawn a line from the image of Zidane's contemptuous walk past Domenech that night in Leipzig to one of him lifting the ultimate trophy in Berlin tonight can be counted in the hairs on the great man's head. It's jarring to think it happened only three weeks ago.

Seems like footage from a different tournament altogether.

In a way, it is. France have made the final by really impressing in only two games and Zidane has made the shortlist for the player of the tournament award by doing likewise. The World Cup does this kind of thing all the time, burnishing and destroying reputations according to almost ludicrously constrictive parameters. The wins over Spain and Brazil constitute just three hours of the 150 or so he's played in a French jersey and yet they've saved his good name forever. Not only did he bewitch for a career but he exited with a flourish as well. Full metal jacket rather than tattered coat on stick.

But how different it could all have been.

How different, indeed, it all was before those two games. It's 12 years since the night he came off the bench to score both goals in salvaging a 2-2 draw against the Czechs on his debut. Over the past month . . . as for the most of that time . . . France's fortunes have been mirrored in those of the man Marcello Lippi called on Friday "the best player there has been in the past 20 years".

When the squad was disjointed and divided in the run-up to the tournament, the most blinding flashpoint came because of Domenech's decision to name Fabien Barthez as his first-choice goalkeeper instead of Lyon's Gregory Coupet, a call widely assumed to have been influenced by Zidane's entreaties. When Barthez was booed by French fans as he arrived for training soon after, it was seen as the closest the public had ever . . . would ever . . . come to jeering Zidane himself.

It was around this time that Michel Platini delivered his customary pretournament verdict on France's World Cup prospects. "We need a big performance from Henry, " he said. "He is the one who can make us win. I don't know if Zidane is going to have the legs. It doesn't look likely."

This is where Zidane and his team were at the time. Written off by everyone. Bickering amongst themselves. Divided into used-to-bes and just-might-bes, Zidane, Barthez, Claude Makelele and Lilian Thuram on one side, Coupet, Willy Sagnol, Florent Malouda and friends on the other.

Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira were, by all accounts, tip-toeing along the highwire between both camps trying to force some measure of peace.

And above it all sailed Domenech, unwilling or unable to squeeze some respect out of players who'd long grown tired of him and his dotty ways. This is a man, after all, who is wary of Scorpios. Not the arachnids with claws and what have you but people born between 23 October and 23 November.

Doesn't like them, doesn't trust them. Luckily for him, there isn't one such in his squad, although if mereTrezeguet had held young David in for an extra week, Domenech would have a conundrum on his hands.

Yet here he is, the coach of a side in the World Cup final. Ever since the return of Zidane to the squad . . . which he has tried, with limited success, to pass off as his idea rather than Zidane's . . . Domenech has struggled to convince the outside world that he rather than his senior players is the one running the show. When France became the only one of the eight seeds not to win their opening game here, it didn't take long for the internal grumbling to become public.

Zidane, Henry and Vieira all complained of being too shackled, too rigid in their tactics.

Vieira called it "playing with the handbrake on".

After Zidane complained about the limitations of playing with only Henry up front and called for Trezeguet to be included alongside him, Domenech admitted that he and his playmaker had had words. It's a measure of how low Zidane's stock had fallen that far from appeasing him, Domenech was defiant. "Zidane's definition of a striker is perhaps different to mine, " he said. "To me anyone who finds themselves in the penalty area is an attacker. Anything is possible. Systems are less important than players."

Trezeguet played in the next match alright . . . he it was who came on for Zidane five minutes after the yellow card that could conceivably have been his last meaningful act in football. When asked if this was the most sensitive way to have treated someone of Zidane's stature, Domenech tried to make out that it was the only way he could have acted. "We speak about the team and get along fine, " he insisted. "I'm always looking forward. Zidane would be suspended, so I decided to send a message to everyone. Our future will be played out against Togo, without Zizou."

Which is as quixotic a way of looking at a 90th-minute substitution as you're likely to get.

As a licked finger held up to the wind, L'E - quipe ran a poll the morning of the Togo match. Of the 192,984 people they polled, 57 per cent thought they'd fail to beat Togo by the two-goal margin needed to get through and extend Zidane's career. That's roughly 110,000 people who couldn't see a 2-0 win over a side who were comfortably the worst of the Africans in the competition and who had already been eliminated. Ridiculously, for a full half, they were proved right.

How have they made it from there to here?

Some pieces have fallen into place. For one thing, and in a massive break with tradition, Domenech has fielded the same team three games in a row. Two in a row had never happened before the Brazil game. And for another, Zidane finally found some form from somewhere.

Maybe it was the suspension. Maybe it was the realisation that he was dealing with a coach who was just crazy enough not to pick him again now that his team had started scoring goals without him. Maybe it was that oldest of motivations . . . the hurt of being written off, the scald of being thought of as something less than vital. Or maybe, like a golfer who shoots 76 on Thursday and 66 on Friday, it was simply a matter of the ball running for him early on and the remainder of play fitting his eye.

Whatever, he was a man transformed.

Once Spain took the lead in the second-round match, he took over. Jorge Valdano once said of him that opposing players shouldn't feel slighted that he made them look like fools by pirouetting away from them with a trick or a feint. It wasn't that he was showing off, it was just that his was the most economical way he could think of moving the ball from one spot to the next. Cesc Fabregas, Xabi, Kaka and Ze Roberto surely won't hold it against him.

For two games he was eye-wateringly brilliant again. His was the free-kick Vieira headed home to put them 2-1 up on Spain. His was the goal that sealed the 3-1 win, the free that Henry polished off to beat Brazil, the penalty that beat Portugal. The balance and the beauty returned, propelling France to a place it was impossible to see them reaching. For all that, he wasn't quite as mercurial against Portugal on Wednesday and maybe it's too much to expect a fairytale ending tonight.

But then, this was all too much to expect anyway. So much so that nobody did. Probably not even him.

PATH TO THE FINAL GROUP G 13 June drew with Switzerland 0-0 In a stultifying reprise of their qualifying matches, two dull teams cancelled each other out. Zinedine Zidane booked.

18 June drew with South Korea 1-1 Despite an early Thierry Henry goal, another disjointed display. Zidane was booked again and substituted to his obvious disgust.

23 June beat Togo 2-0 In danger of going out before Patrick Vieira stepped up manfully, scoring the "rst and setting Henry up for the second.

SECOND ROUND 26 June beat Spain 3-1 Finally announced themselves. Franck Ribery equalised David Villa's penalty and Vieira and Zidane ran the rest of the show, both scoring.

QUARTER-FINAL 1 July beat Brazil 1-0 Zidane rolled back the years with a complete performance, capped when his free-kick found Henry unmarked at the back post for the winner.

SEMI-FINAL 5 July beat Portugal 1-0 Zidane's "rst-half penalty was the difference after a scrappy game. Lilian Thuram and William Gallas repelled a disappointing Portugal attack.