Zinedine Zidane sent shockwaves around the footballing world after announcing that he was stepping down as Real Madrid manager on Thursday.

In less than two-and-a-half seasons, the Frenchman who was already a club legend after his playing career, elevated himself to the status of one of the greatest figures to be associated with Los Blancos in the Whites’ decorated history.

Here are Seven Deadly Stats from Zidane’s magnificent reign.

BEST IN MADRID’S HISTORY?

Zidane’s indelible mark on the club is best summed up by how they’ve swept up just about every trophy available, with the Copa del Rey the only competition the 45-year-old has failed to win.

Nine trophies in less than three seasons. Wildly successful seems like an understatement. Is he already Madrid’s greatest ever manager?

AN UNPARALLELED LEGACY

His overall trophy count is impressive, but Zidane will be defined by three of those. Nobody had won the Champions League even twice in a row before he showed up in the Madrid dugout. Three in a row was borderline unthinkable.

But Zizou pulled it off, joining Carlo Ancelotti and Bob Paisley as the only managers to have won the trophy three times. Which club will take him to his fourth?

UNBEATABLE

THEY ALWAYS SCORED

Even more impressive than the unbeaten run was the scoring streak. For a record-tying 73 games, Real Madrid scoring at least once was the safest best in football.

A TRUE JUGGERNAUT

THE GALACTICO WHO WASN’T

As a player Zidane embodied Real Madrid’s previous Galactico era, joining the club in a record-setting £48million transfer from Juventus in 2001.

As a manager, however, he was quite the opposite. If anything, his spell was an anti-Galactico era. He benefitted from having inherited a deeply talented squad, but in any case, his emphasis on youth development was admirable. There were plenty of young players already at the club, either in the academy or on the fringes of the first-team, who have developed under Zidane, whose only transfer purchases were young players – Alvaro Morata, Dani Ceballos, and Theo Hernandez.

His trophies to spending ratio is quite impressive.

THAT WIN PERCENTAGE

Club president Florentino Perez said that Madrid don’t yet have a replacement in mind for Zidane. Anyone who steps in is going to have a tough act to follow.

A man with a near 70% win percentage is tough to top. And then there are the trophies.