Zola’s love affair with football is hot as ever

Gianfranco Zola does not look or sound like a man who is ready to retire. Only two weeks ago against Everton he added a brilliant lob to his greatest goals collection, which will surely stretch to several hours when the video is compiled.

Listen to the Chelsea striker chat and it is hard to imagine him wanting to step aside. ‘The way I’m approaching football now, for me it’s joy, pure joy,” he says.

‘I’m having such fun that I wish I could have had the same fun some years ago. It’s like going and having a game of golf with my friends.”

Claudio Ranieri wants to make sure the 36-year-old’s clubs are not put to too much use for a while.

The Chelsea head coach has spelled how desperate he is to keep Zola for another season, calling him ‘an example” and suggesting champions league qualification could be decisive. Prior to a home derby against Fulham last weekend, which Chelsea unfortunately drew as the battle intensifies for third and fourth places, Zola contemplated the future.

He calls the champions league ‘a competition to look forward to being involved with” and says the financial benefits would make it easier for Chelsea to offer him a contract, should he wish to go on. Yet much as it irks him to have competed only once in the tournament — discounting a European Cup campaign with Napoli — it appears unlikely to make up his mind.

‘Do these points keep me working and playing? No,” he says. ‘I just carry on playing because I like playing. Probably the club will find it more difficult to offer me a contract [if we are not in the champions league] because of the situation they are going through right now. But from my point of view, I enjoy playing. That’s the main drive.”

So if the offer is there, surely he will take it. ‘If I get to the end of the season and I still have the physical qualities to cope with the game, why should I stop? I’m taking it easy at the moment and when that moment comes we’ll see.”

Less than three months from his 37th birthday Zola looks fitter than most 17-year-olds. It is a measure of his form that he was on the short list for the Players’ Player of the Year award (won by Thierry Henry of Arsenal). At times in the past the Italian has choked on his own expectations but he performs now with a freedom that has helped him produce such magic this season. With 14 premiership goals he has already surpassed his best total.

‘After many years you have a different approach to the game,” he says. ‘You look at simple things. You go back to the years when you first started and you just played for the sake of it. You had talents then and aspirations but you were easy. And that’s the way it should be.

‘I have had my moments in which I struggled and I have come to realise that many of the problems were created by myself, putting too much pressure on myself. Now it’s much better and I think it’s why I’m having such a good season and a great time.

‘I remember when I played for Parma against Arsenal in the Cup Winners’ Cup final, I simply couldn’t play. I couldn’t do the basics, just because I was putting too much pressure on myself and I couldn’t express myself. That was one example but there were a few other times. Now I’m really happy because whatever comes I enjoy it.”

As Zola spoke at Chelsea’s training ground, former club-mate Roberto

di Matteo sat nearby. Di Matteo did not play beyond 30 because of injury and Pierluigi Casiraghi, another Italian, likewise had his career at Stamford Bridge ended prematurely. Such memories must make Zola enjoy his good fortune all the more.

Zola never imagined that he would be playing at 36, let alone have fans pleading with him to continue. ‘It’s been a surprise and a beautiful surprise,” he says. At one stage he thought a career at the top would pass him by.

‘There was a moment when I felt maybe I wasn’t going to make it. I was 23 and I was still playing for a third-division team [Torres] in Italy, so time was running out for me. But I kept playing and doing what I was doing and I came out of that.”

Napoli spotted him and before long he replaced the departed Diego Maradona. From his childhood in a small Sardinian town where football was one of the few entertainments, Zola acquired the determination that has seen him through the hard times.

‘I learned to pursue something you really like and never give up on trying,” he says. ‘In Sardinia I was taught to be stubborn when I need to. If I believe that something works I keep working on it — even if I am not getting results straight away. I have built my career on that.”

Last summer Zola called on his stubborn streak. He had started only half of Chelsea’s premiership games the previous season and had scored only three league goals but he was determined not to fade out of the picture. During his break he put himself through a rigorous training routine, bent on showing there was plenty left in him.

‘It’s vital that you always have points to prove in life,” he says. ‘Otherwise you don’t do training or make sacrifices. You just sit down and put weight on. I felt it’s not right that Franco Zola finishes his career like last year. I knew there was something to come out from myself this season.

‘When I came back here I was really focused and well prepared and I started the season in the best way. When you start the season the way I started it, then it becomes easier. Psychologically you become stronger and more confident.”

A flurry of goals and assists inspired Chelsea. So how had last season turned out to be so frustrating?

‘I blame some of it on myself because I could have done better at certain moments,” he says.

‘Also Eidur [Gudjohnsen] and Jimbo [Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink] were playing very well, which made my life more difficult. But there were a couple of times, I must say, that maybe the selection didn’t help me and I deserved something better. But it happens.”

Chelsea have offered Zola the chance to stay for a further two years once he retires. The role is not defined and need not be coaching, which Zola says he has not properly considered. What is certain is the fans would love him to continue playing. They know he sets out to entertain as well as win.

‘I have seen supporters cheering their team because they won,” Zola says, ‘but I have seen bigger cheers when somebody gives them joy with a piece of play or skill. Watching Real Madrid against Manchester United gave me such enthusiasm

and pleasure. I like to play with joy and try things that come to me. Even if they are not the right things it doesn’t matter; at least I have tried.”

Hopefully he will be trying, and mesmerising, for another season. —