He then went to Torres also a Sardinian club (88/21goals) moving on in 1989 to Napoli where he joined Maradona and learned much from him (good stuff that is). He scored 32 goals in 105 appearances for the club but was sold when the club experienced financial problems.
He was bought by Palma (102/49) in 1993, staying until 1996, then joined the "rising" Chelsea and was part of their climb to fame. He played 229 times scoring 59 goals-some as shown here. He was voted Chelsea player of the year twice and racked up many other awards with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OngyupOnaIo
In 2003 he then left Chelsea to return to Italy and Cagliari (74 games /22 goals) retiring in 2005.
In his career he played 35 times for the Azurri scoring 10 goals and was voted in 2007 by Sun readers as one of the Top Ten best foreign "artistic" players. It doesn't get much better than that.
Though he retired as the 5th highest free kick scorer in Serie A-can you name the others voted in the top 6?
Alex Ferguson described him as a "clever little so and so".
His management career has been uneven with spells at West Ham, Italy U16 and U21, Watford, Cagliari, Al-Arabi (Doha) and most recently Birmingham City where things did not go too well; he "sacked himself" in April 2017.
His son play for Grays Athletic in the Isthmian league, having been with the Hammers for a while.
Zola appears in a music video by the Derry band Wonder Villains and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and the OBE for services to football!!
(ps Pirlo, Baggio, Totti, Del Piero, Mihajlovic)
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