Why a Chelsea return for Gianfranco Zola makes sense

Updated 20/06/2018 at 10:13 GMT

It is a quandary which has struck many a club at some point in time: whether to gamble on, or with, the reputation of a legend. Dan Levene on a big decision ahead for Chelsea.

Birmingham City manager Gianfranco Zola

Image credit: Reuters

When Roberto Di Matteo was unveiled as the surprise assistant to Andre Villas-Boas at Chelsea in 2011, there were more than a few eyebrows raised.

Chelsea's coach Roberto di Matteo (C) attends the award ceremony after winning the Champions League final soccer match against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena

Image credit: Reuters

As a coach he had not nailed-down much of a reputation: unremarkable stints at MK Dons and West Brom hardly placing him on the 'most wanted' list of other club chairmen.

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But he was a Chelsea legend: the scorer of a rocket goal, inside a minute, to help secure the club's first FA Cup in a generation.

And, after a series of other wonderful playing achievements, the sufferer of a terribly sad end: having had his leg shattered in European competition, never to play again.

Football and sentiment go hand in hand, in a way that none of the businesses it hopes to emulate could possibly manage.

And, when Di Matteo returned, many feared that glowing reputation would be clouded.

Inevitably, like all managers (particularly at Chelsea), he was discarded like yesterday's newspaper: fired, having been found wanting in the top job.

But, on the way to that date with destiny, he of course lifted the Champions League trophy as caretaker boss: only burnishing that reputation to a status that gleams beyond all but a handful.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained?

It is a gamble Chelsea look set to take with perhaps their greatest legend of all this summer.

Gianfranco Zola was dismissed by many as a has-been seeking a final payday, when he signed playing terms with Chelsea back in 1996.

Chelsea new signing Gianfranco Zola meets the press with manager Ruud Gullit (right) at Stamford Bridge in London.

Image credit: Getty Images

He went on to redefine what the word 'legend' meant at Chelsea: doing the seemingly physically impossible on-pitch, while impressing pretty much all with his genial good-blokeness off it.

When he departed in 2003, to fulfil a promise to return to his hometown club, Cagliari, prior to retirement (so Zola), he was lauded as the club's greatest-ever player.

And, in the years and then-unexpected triumphs that have followed, very few have managed to challenge that position.

Zola is highly expected to be a part of this summer's new managerial order at Stamford Bridge.

And those same questions are being asked, as arose when Di Matteo was in the frame seven years ago.

Zola's coaching career has been largely inauspicious: stints with West Ham, Italy's U16s, Watford, Cagliari, Al-Arabi in Qatar, and Birmingham City have been stuttering, and trophy-free.

'Too nice to manage?' is a frequent point of speculation. Who knows.

But often an affable character does well as an assistant: as Chelsea found with Di Matteo's number two Eddie Newton, promoted when the Italian took the top job.

Chelsea goalscorers Roberto Di Matteo (left) and Eddie Newton are hugged by captain Dennis Wise as they celebrate with the trophy after the match..

Image credit: Getty Images

And, as one wag put it to me (somewhat prophetically) on the appointment of Villas-Boas and Di Matteo back then: “He can put the cones out, show him where the gents are, and if it all goes wrong: Robbie knows how to sign-off on a team sheet.”

Sentiment, as has been said, runs through football like the letters through a stick of rock.

But, just sometimes, sentiment is what carries the day.

Should Zola turn up in coming days or weeks, it will be a gamble.

But, as history has shown, the potential gains far outstrip even the greatest foreseeable losses.

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