[情報] 佐拉 - 足球的樂趣
http://www.fifa.com/en/news/feature/0,1451,105892,00.html?articleid=105892
Zola - a joy for football
(FIFA.com) 21 Mar 2005
It seems a very scary moment. Zola is surrounded by supporters as he
emerges from the dressing room and attempts to enter the team bus. On
spotting the Italian and without the usual preventive barriers, several
hundred fans push forward and close in on the azzurri great. The little
Zola and his smile are entirely lost under a multitude of arms and bodies
as the chant reaches fever pitch, "Zola, Zola." The wall appears
unbreakable. Several heartbeats pass…then, there he is being bundled on
the bus by a burly security guard, yet still wearing the broad grin that
has endeared him to fans in Italy, England and the world over.
It is February 2005 and Gianfranco Zola has just played - scoring a
typically cheeky lob with his very first touch - in the FIFA/UEFA
"Football for Hope" tsunami charity match in Barcelona. Back on the bus,
Zola, with not a hair out of place on top of his boyish face, waves
cheerily back to a crowd that moments earlier seemed to be desperate to
grab a piece of the Italian. Now approaching his 39th birthday, Zola, the
boy from the Sardinian hills, is as comfortable with adulation as he is
with milk in his tea.
It would be fair to say that Zola has never prompted the kind of
love-or-hate passion among fans that his Napoli mentor Diego Maradona
could wield, but in England at least, the Italian's undeniable
undiminished talent, loyalty, courage, sportsmanship and warmth commanded
a deeper, more meaningful admiration few of his contemporaries, foreign
or local, could ever get close to.
Circles and friends
Beginning in Sardinia, Zola went on to make friends in Naples, 32
goals in 105 games from 1989-93, Parma, 49 strikes in 102 matches from
1993-96, Chelsea 80 goals in 312 games from 1996-2003, before returning
to his home island and fulfilling a promise to end his career at
Cagliari. That circle is not the only one that prettily punctuates a
glittering club career. His first coach at Napoli, Claudio Ranieri - the
man who entrusted Zola with the task of taking over from Maradona - was
also his last at Chelsea, a season when, at 38, he finished the club's
topscorer and top provider.
"What keeps me going is the passion for the game," says Zola. "Even
now, it's very difficult for me to think of something that is not
football."
His late arrival on the big scene could well have helped too in
Zola's remarkable longevity. The "box of tricks", as he was fondly
nicknamed at Chelsea, may well have been lost to the game if it were not
for the scouting missions of Napoli to find a "new Maradona" in the
deepest and least trodden parts of Italian football. As it was Zola was
22 when his idol came up to him after training and joked "finally I've
found someone smaller than me."
A similar height was not the only thing the Sardinian would thank
Maradona for. Zola watched and learned. He perfected his touch, dribbling
, passing and executed expert free kicks, proving big enough to shoulder
the weight of the No 10 shirt when Diego departed in 1991. He also
learned what not to do. "I never saw him touch a drop of beer," Chelsea's
Frank Lampard said of his former team-mate.
Battling with the ponytail
When Zola joined Parma in 1993, the club from the north were making
waves in Italian football. Backed by money from the Parmalat company, the
club had begun an expansive spending programme and their new fantasista
was the cream on the pudding. Now 27, Zola was already a feature of the
Italian national team, and within Parma's battle for top honours with
Juventus, a mini-battle waged between Zola and Roberto Baggio as the FIFA
World Cup of 1994 loomed large.
"I've the highest regard for Gianfranco," Baggio had said. "But I
don't intend to surrender my place to him."
While the Italian nation's idol remained the divine Baggio, that
status cut little ice with coach Arrigo Sacchi and in Italy's second game
in the USA against Norway, Baggio was famously the man chosen to be
replaced after Gianluca Pagliuca's sending off. Zola was given his chance
against Nigeria in the Round of 16 but blew it by being sent off for the
first and only time in his career.
"The referee saw it that way and I'm sorry because it was my big
opportunity," he says. "On the big occasions there was always something
going wrong."
While Zola watched on from the bench, Baggio's miraculous and
ultimately tragic contribution is now etched in history.
Partnered by Colombian Faustino Asprilla, Zola would "play the best
football of his career" for Parma but a vital penalty miss against
Germany at Euro 96 did not help his cause with the Italian public.
A second home
The little Italian had to come to England to enjoy the kind of
adoration he never quite managed in his native land. Zola was 30 when
Ruud Gullit brought him to Chelsea to add some creative flair to a
fashionable London team that had achieved little success since the 1960s.
Seven seasons later in 2003 after the Sardinian had resisted all the
persuasive attempts by new Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to keep him,
Zola had not only helped the club to FA Cup, Cup Winners Cup and League
Cup triumphs but through his artistry had helped change the face of the
game in the country where it was born.
His control, his delivery, his movement and vision had brought an
extra, more beautiful dimension to English football and, just as
importantly, his behaviour on and off the park and cheerful, cheeky way
not only touched the hearts of home and away fans alike but helped erase
a negative tendency towards stereotyping foreign players.
Voted England's best import and Chelsea's best ever player, Zola
received warm applause wherever he went and at his final press conference
even the most hard-nosed journalist stood up to give him a standing
ovation.
"Deciding to play in England was the best choice of my career," he
says. "Since the first game I was astounded by the way supporters live
the game. I found myself going back through the years and like a young
child, I just couldn't wait for the match to come around."
And it does not end there. Promotion to Serie A with Cagliari and
now an outside chance of a Champions League spot.
He is 39th birthday may well be around the corner but for Zola,
leaning back on the bus as the sound of fans' screams fade into the
distance, you are never too old to learn a new trick, win a smile or make
a friend.
--
以伊露維塔的名為證發誓 — 若有誰敢奪取屬於我們的藍色之魂，不論對方是天使
、惡魔、男人或女人，包括尚未出生者，若有任何的生靈，不論偉大或渺小，是善
還是惡，我們都將懷著復仇與憎恨之心直追到天涯海角，直追到世界結束之日。
--
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