It is incumbent when writing about the career of any footballer to include details of his appearances and overall tally of goals, his C.V. in prose form including who he signed for and when and for how much money. It is also usually obligatory to name-check the trophies won, assuming of course that the player in question was successful and that?s almost a given if they have an article devoted to them.
But this is Gianfranco Zola we are celebrating here today, a maestro in the truest, most literal sense whose magical powers stripped away all the negative miscellanea that attaches itself to the game. The tribalism.
The old-school distrust of foreign talent, believing them to be mercenaries and incapable of performing mid-week at a rain-lashed Britannia Stadium ? for this remember was the Nineties. Maybe too, some among us carry a heartfelt hatred of Chelsea FC.
None of this mattered when Zola played. Regardless of who we supported and regardless of anything else, when he backheeled in flight, direct from a corner a stupendous goal against Norwich each and every one of us regressed to childhood wonder, jaws on the floor, eyes emblazoned. He left us spellbound. He left us exclaiming, ?Fucking hell, that was AMAZING? and then just laughing because all other vocabulary was stolen. On many occasions he made our hearts swell with pure joy and for a precious moment or two, every shred of the cynicism of a cynical world disappeared.
What are mere dry statistics compared to all this&...