Icons: Gianfranco Zola
Gianfranco Zola is another football icon that a wonderful career
He is an Italian football manager and former footballer who played predominantly as a forward. He was most recently the assistant manager of Chelsea.
Quick summary of his career
He spent the first decade of his playing career playing in Italy, most notably with Napoli, alongside Diego Maradona and Careca, where he was able to win the Serie A title, and at Parma, where he won the Italian Super Cup and the UEFA Cup.
He later moved to Chelsea, where he was voted the Football Writers' Player of the Year in the 1996–97 season. During his time at the club, he won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the UEFA Super Cup, two FA Cups, the League Cup, and the Community Shield.
Who remembers this wonderful goal against Manchester United?
In 2003, he was voted Chelsea's greatest player ever. You could even argue that he played a crucial part of Chelsea's rise to become a force across England and then the continent. Without their success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it's highly likely that their current owner Roman Abramovich would never have bought the club.
Zola finished his career with a spell at Cagliari in Italy. He scored 27 goals in 81 appearances and helped them gain promotion to Serie A in the 2003/2004 season.
International career
He was capped 35 times for Italy from his debut in 1991, appearing at the 1994 World Cup, where Italy finished in second place, and Euro 1996. His final game for the Italian national team came in 1997. During those six years, he scored ten times for his country including the strike against England.
Zola's career as a coach and manager
After a stint in charge of Italy under-21s, Zola began his club managerial career with West Ham United in 2008, before being sacked in 2010. He was then manager of then Championship side Watford from July 2012 until he announced his resignation on 16 December 2013. From December 2014 to March 2015 he returned to Italy to manager former club Cagliari in Serie A.
He returned to Chelsea as the assistant of new Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri on 18 July 2018, ahead of the 2018–19 Premier League season. He left the following year after Sarri was replaced by Frank Lampard.
