On a February evening in 1998, Ruud Gullit flicked on the television, pressed the Teletext button and there it was, the news nobody – not even he – expected. Gullit had been sacked as Chelsea’s player-manager just nine months after winning the club’s first major trophy for 26 years.
He had had no prior warning, no reason given – not yet at least. And just a few hours later, his replacement was revealed. As if the story was not sensational enough, the man to fill his spot was one of his players, Gianluca Vialli.
As sporting soap opera goes, this was the peak; the late-90s, west London football equivalent of EastEnders’ big reveal of Phil Mitchell’s shooter.
It must have felt like a knife in the back for Gullit. Yet for Chelsea, it was a decision that ultimately paid off, another turning point in a successful era that is now inextricably linked with an elegant, shiny-headed, larger-than-life Italian attacker-cum-coach.
Vialli had arrived at the club in the summer of 1996 on a free transfer. He was quite the coup. He had lifted the European Cup as captain of Juventus just a few weeks before signing – a footballing aristocrat both figuratively and literally having grown up in a 60-room castle.
Yet here he was at Stamford Bridge, at a Chelsea that was nowhere near the Chelsea of today, getting on board with the Premier League’s foreign revolution.
Gullit, who signed Vialli, had just been appointed player-manager and the team was to feature Dan Petrescu, Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo and Frank Leboeuf. It was exciting and continental, bubbly Prosecco football to replace the chips-and-gravy stuff that had gone before.
That season, Chelsea won the FA Cup, with Di Matteo’s famous strike giving the Blues the edge over the Middlesbrough of Juninho and Ravanelli. But for Vialli personally, it was a campaign of more downs than ups.
He had scored a brilliant winner away at Old Trafford and two goals in a thrilling fourth round FA Cup tie with Liverpool. Chelsea fans had taken to him immediately and sang his song to the tune of ‘That’s Amore’. But for much of the season, Vialli was embroiled in a feud with Gullit that often saw him on the bench with Mark Hughes and Zola preferred in attack.
The next season, things started well, with Vialli scoring four in an away game at Barnsley, after which his manager paid him a backhanded compliment. “He looked fitter and sharper,” said Gullit, “and he’s given up smoking.” Vialli also…
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