More than 15 years have passed since one of the most universally loved footballers in the history of the game turned out in a competitive fixture for Chelsea, when Zola played the last of his 312 matches as a Blue to help us beat Liverpool in the final match of the 2002/03 season.
He was named Player of the Year at the end of that campaign for the second time in his seven-year stint with the club, which included numerous trophies and the honour of becoming the first Chelsea player to be named Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year.
In short, he’s a Blues legend whose legacy in west London is more than secure – but now he has a chance to add to it with a successful stint on the bench, just as these former players did when they returned to the club in a coaching capacity.
The most famous of these were two men who starred alongside Zola at the Bridge in the late-Nineties and both found the back of the net in the 1997 FA Cup final: Roberto Di Matteo and Eddie Newton.
The Italian rejoined the club to work alongside Andre Villas Boas, but he took the reins mid-season and one of his first jobs was to add his old mate Newton, who assisted him at MK Dons and West Brom, to his coaching set-up.
The duo led us to FA Cup glory with a 2-1 victory over Liverpool at Wembley Stadium, when Di Matteo became the first man to score an FA Cup-winning goal and go on to win the competition as a boss for the same club since Stan Seymour did it for Newcastle United in 1952.
