Zinedine Zidane Praises 'The Scientist' For Role In Real Madrid's Success

Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane lauded the club’s physical trainer, Gregory Dupont, best known as “The Scientist,” for playing an important role in the team’s success.

Los Blancos remain one point ahead of their ultimate rivals, Barcelona, in La Liga standings. The club has been in great form coming into the latter part of the season. Despite being plagued by controversies, Zidane has kept a positive attitude and is letting Madrid's performance do the talking.

In a recent press conference (via Besoccer.com), Zidane insisted that he doesn’t mind the criticism. Instead, the Real Madrid legend praised the entire team for having been able to maintain their strength and energy during the most tiring and difficult stage of the season.

"It's a very complicated, very difficult game and our strength and energy has to be on its own in that," Zidane explained.

Zidane then revealed that one factor in Madrid’s success is being fit and healthy. According to the renowned coach, the man behind this was Dupont, who has been doing a great job keeping his players competent.

"Dupont is a very good physical trainer. There are a lot of competent people in the club and he is a new fitness coach who is doing a great job," he revealed.

It can be recalled that Zidane ended Madrid’s ties with fitness coach Antonio Pintus because he started to lose faith in his methods. He reached out to Dupont as a replacement, and “The Scientist” immediately left the French national team to respond to the coach’s call.

Zidane seemed to have recognized Dupont’s influence over France's World Cup win. Despite joining the national team just shortly before the tournament began, Dupont still managed to make them healthier and fitter for the competition.

In an interview with Marca, Dupont admitted that he has developed a passion for researching training methods. He also considers himself an investigator who always bases his work on scientific facts.

"I've always wanted to associate investigations with practice, worlds that 15 years ago went on their own separate paths. You need to have the best data system and statistics and that's why it's good to work for institutions,” Dupont pointed out.

Real Madrid players refer to him as “McGregor.” But in contrast to the UFC star this nickname comes from, Dupont likes to keep a low profile and often avoids the media.