He might not have won the number of trophies as some of the players who followed him, but make no mistake, Gianfranco Zola will go down as one of Chelsea‘s greatest ever players – and he cost them just £4.5million.
Zola left Chelsea in 2003, less than a week before Roman Abramovich completed his takeover of the club. As the Blues built towards their first Premier League title in 2005, Zola was seeing out his career at Cagliari.
But what he won – or didn’t win – at Stamford Bridge is irrelevant. He provided joy in other ways. To everyone who saw him play, few can compare. And as bargains go, there have been few better.
The problem
Chelsea were on the verge of a revolution. Ruud Gullit had taken over from new England boss Glenn Hoddle in the summer of 1996, but this was not the Chelsea we know today.
They had not won a major trophy since the 1971 Cup Winners’ Cup, after which they spent the better part of 20 years yo-yoing between the First and Second Divisions. The six seasons prior to Gullit’s appointment had seen them finish 11th four times and 14th twice.
It was now stick-or-twist time for Chelsea, and regardless of his stellar reputation as a player, appointing Gullit as player-manager was a bold left-field move for Chelsea.
He was just the third ever manager from outside the UK and Ireland to take charge of an English club, following in the footsteps of disastrous duo Jozef Venglos at Aston Villa and Ossie Ardiles at Tottenham.
Chelsea’s board would not have made that kind of appointment in the first place if they didn’t intend for Gullit to do things his way. Sexy football was on its way.
The market
That summer – the first following the ratification of the Bosman ruling – saw the first big influx of foreign players to Premier League clubs, giving the league’s only two managers significant advantages in language, culture, scouting, and reputation.
Arsenal signed Remi Garde and Patrick Vieira on the advice of incoming boss Arsene Wenger, while Gullit looked to Italy, where he had spent eight distinguished years as a player before joining Chelsea.
In came midfielder Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio in a club record transfer of £4.9million and striker Gianluca Vialli from Juventus on a free transfer.
It may not seem like much of an invasion now, but up till that point the only Italian ever to have played in the Premier League was Nottingham Forest flop Andrea Silenzi.
What they could have had
For £4.5m in 1996, Chelsea…
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