“WE THOUGHT, ‘WHY DO WE NEED THIS GUY – WE ALREADY HAVE JOHN SPENCER!’”
30 GIANFRANCO ZOLA
CHELSEA
It was almost 11pm in Cheshire when the helicopter fell from the sky. Matthew Harding was making his way back to London, having watched his beloved Chelsea slip to defeat at second-tier Bolton in the League Cup. He never made it home. Along with four others, the Blues’ vice-chairman died on that fateful October night in 1996.
Harding was a figure of hope, following an awful quarter-century for Chelsea. Between 1971 and 1996, the club won no major titles and finished outside English football’s top 10 on 21 occasions. Without their investor, their prospects seemed uncertain once more.
A fortnight after Harding’s death, a new figure of hope arrived at the crucial moment. Gianfranco Zola was just 5ft 6in tall, but he changed everything. In the 25 years since the Italian’s arrival, Chelsea have never finished outside the top 10 and celebrated 20 major trophies. Few players have altered the course of history in such pivotal fashion.
If Zola was special, it was because he learned from the grand master. He was an unpolished diamond, still competing in Italy’s third tier in his native Sardinia when spotted by Napoli in 1989, aged 23. He was welcomed to Stadio San Paolo by one Diego Maradona. “Finally,” the Argentine told him, “they’ve bought a guy even shorter than me!”
Zola played only a fringe role as the ‘Little Donkeys’ secured the 1989-90 Scudetto, but spent as much time with Diego as possible.
“‘El Pibe’ was so important for Gianfranco,” says Massimo Crippa, who played alongside the Italian for Napoli, Parma and the national team. “They had similar characteristics, and Zola gained so many outstanding skills from Diego’s technical knowledge.
“They’d spend a very long time together on the training field, trying different free-kicks. Gianfranco was a bit shy at the start but he had great qualities. Even though he wasn’t very tall, he was hard to mark and so strong. When Maradona left the club in 1992, Zola was given the No.10 jersey and then played extraordinarily well.”
In 1992-93, Zola scored 12 Serie A goals and provided 12 assists, the joint-highest tally in the league. As Napoli began to struggle financially, Parma swooped with a £6m bid. He netted 18 times in his first campaign at the Stadio Ennio Tardini, but disappointment was to follow at USA 94.
On July 5, Italy trailed 1-0 to Nigeria in the last 16 when Zola was introduced from the bench for his first tournament appearance. Eager to make an impact, and believing he had been denied a penalty after falling inside the area, he had an uncharacteristic rush of blood – charging after Augustine Eguavoen and chopping a boot across the defender to win possession back. Eguavoen went down and Zola was shown a red card, responding by kneeling on the pitch, arms folded like a crestfallen child. He’s the only player to be sent off on his birthday in World Cup history. It could have cost Italy, had Roberto Baggio not bagged a brace to rescue the 10-men Azzurri. Zola was available from suspension by the time they reached the Rose Bowl final, but he wasn’t called upon.
The following season, he hit back with his highest ever goal tally, scoring 28 times as Parma challenged for
