http://www.fifa.com/en/news/feature/0,1451,105892,00.html?articleid=105892 Zola - a joy for football (FIFA.com) 21 Mar 2005 It seems a very scary moment. Zola is surrounded by supporters as he emerges from the dressing room and attempts to enter the team bus. On spotting the Italian and without the usual preventive barriers, several hundred fans push forward and close in on the azzurri great. The little Zola and his smile are entirely lost under a multitude of arms and bodies as the chant reaches fever pitch, "Zola, Zola." The wall appears unbreakable. Several heartbeats pass…then, there he is being bundled on the bus by a burly security guard, yet still wearing the broad grin that has endeared him to fans in Italy, England and the world over. It is February 2005 and Gianfranco Zola has just played - scoring a typically cheeky lob with his very first touch - in the FIFA/UEFA "Football for Hope" tsunami charity match in Barcelona. Back on the bus, Zola, with not a hair out of place on top of his boyish face, waves cheerily back to a crowd that moments earlier seemed to be desperate to grab a piece of the Italian. Now approaching his 39th birthday, Zola, the boy from the Sardinian hills, is as comfortable with adulation as he is with milk in his tea. It would be fair to say that Zola has never prompted the kind of love-or-hate passion among fans that his Napoli mentor Diego Maradona could wield, but in England at least, the Italian's undeniable undiminished talent, loyalty, courage, sportsmanship and warmth commanded a deeper, more meaningful admiration few of his contemporaries, foreign or local, could ever get close to. Circles and friends Beginning in Sardinia, Zola went on to make friends in Naples, 32 goals in 105 games from 1989-93, Parma, 49 strikes in 102 matches from 1993-96, Chelsea 80 goals in 312 games from 1996-2003, before returning to his home island and fulfilling a promise to end his career at Cagliari. That circle is not the only one that prettily punctuates a glittering club career. His first coach at Napoli, Claudio Ranieri - the man who entrusted Zola with the task of taking over from Maradona - was also his last at Chelsea, a season when, at 38, he finished the club's topscorer and top provider. "What keeps me going is the passion for the game," says Zola. "Even now, it's very difficult for me to think of something that is not football." His late arrival on the big scene could well have helped too in Zola's remarkable longevity. The "box of tricks", as he was fondly nicknamed at Chelsea, may well have been lost to the game if it were not for the scouting missions of Napoli to find a "new Maradona" in the deepest and least trodden parts of Italian football. As it was Zola was 22 when his idol came up to him after training and joked "finally I've found someone smaller than me." A similar height was not the only thing the Sardinian would thank Maradona for. Zola watched and learned. He perfected his touch, dribbling , passing and executed expert free kicks, proving big enough to shoulder the weight of the No 10 shirt when Diego departed in 1991. He also learned what not to do. "I never saw him touch a drop of beer," Chelsea's Frank Lampard said of his former team-mate. Battling with the ponytail When Zola joined Parma in 1993, the club from the north were making waves in Italian football. Backed by money from the Parmalat company, the club had begun an expansive spending programme and their new fantasista was the cream on the pudding. Now 27, Zola was already a feature of the Italian national team, and within Parma's battle for top honours with Juventus, a mini-battle waged between Zola and Roberto Baggio as the FIFA World Cup of 1994 loomed large. "I've the highest regard for Gianfranco," Baggio had said. "But I don't intend to surrender my place to him." While the Italian nation's idol remained the divine Baggio, that status cut little ice with coach Arrigo Sacchi and in Italy's second game in the USA against Norway, Baggio was famously the man chosen to be replaced after Gianluca Pagliuca's sending off. Zola was given his chance against Nigeria in the Round of 16 but blew it by being sent off for the first and only time in his career. "The referee saw it that way and I'm sorry because it was my big opportunity," he says. "On the big occasions there was always something going wrong." While Zola watched on from the bench, Baggio's miraculous and ultimately tragic contribution is now etched in history. Partnered by Colombian Faustino Asprilla, Zola would "play the best football of his career" for Parma but a vital penalty miss against Germany at Euro 96 did not help his cause with the Italian public. A second home The little Italian had to come to England to enjoy the kind of adoration he never quite managed in his native land. Zola was 30 when Ruud Gullit brought him to Chelsea to add some creative flair to a fashionable London team that had achieved little success since the 1960s. Seven seasons later in 2003 after the Sardinian had resisted all the persuasive attempts by new Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to keep him, Zola had not only helped the club to FA Cup, Cup Winners Cup and League Cup triumphs but through his artistry had helped change the face of the game in the country where it was born. His control, his delivery, his movement and vision had brought an extra, more beautiful dimension to English football and, just as importantly, his behaviour on and off the park and cheerful, cheeky way not only touched the hearts of home and away fans alike but helped erase a negative tendency towards stereotyping foreign players. Voted England's best import and Chelsea's best ever player, Zola received warm applause wherever he went and at his final press conference even the most hard-nosed journalist stood up to give him a standing ovation. "Deciding to play in England was the best choice of my career," he says. "Since the first game I was astounded by the way supporters live the game. I found myself going back through the years and like a young child, I just couldn't wait for the match to come around." And it does not end there. Promotion to Serie A with Cagliari and now an outside chance of a Champions League spot. He is 39th birthday may well be around the corner but for Zola, leaning back on the bus as the sound of fans' screams fade into the distance, you are never too old to learn a new trick, win a smile or make a friend. -- 以伊露維塔的名為證發誓 — 若有誰敢奪取屬於我們的藍色之魂，不論對方是天使 、惡魔、男人或女人，包括尚未出生者，若有任何的生靈，不論偉大或渺小，是善 還是惡，我們都將懷著復仇與憎恨之心直追到天涯海角，直追到世界結束之日。 --

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