Top Facts About Gianfranco Zola
Gianfranco Zola, one of the top former Italian footballers if not a legendary one, is also a former teammate of Diego Maradona, indeed, at Napoli, between 1989 and 1993 that he served the Italian club. In this post, we are more into top facts about Gianfranco Zola and his personal life.
Well, if we are to top facts about Gianfranco Zola in this post, we would surely let you know about all the aspects of
Gianfranco Zola personal life
which includes Gianfranco Zola childhood, Gianfranco Zola parents, Gianfranco Zola wife, and Gianfranco Zola children.
Other than that we will let you know about Gianfranco Zola net worth, Gianfranco Zola salary, and his footballing life. You might have questions about Gianfranco Zola stats and Gianfranco Zola transfer market stats when he was a player which in this post you will find answers to.
Top Facts About Gianfranco Zola You Might Not Know
So, as you see, we’re going to cover almost all the
facts about Gianfranco Zola
either about his personal or footballing life.
Gianfranco Zola Childhood and Parents
Before anything else, let’s tell you about
Gianfranco Zola age
: Gianfranco Zola was born on July 5, 1966, in Oliena, Italy, so, he’s by now 54 years old and retired both as a player and manager. Not much information or let’s say comprehensive information is at hand about
Gianfranco Zola childhood
. However, he has talked about his childhood here or there in interviews and has given some hints how he spent his childhood. For instance, he once said in an interview that he used to skip school for football when a child and he practiced a lot on his skills; actually from eight in the morning to eight at night.
He also mentioned in the same interview that when a child he lived in a small town with a population of 8000 people. He had nothing to do for fun except for football and that was why he played football with his friends all the time. The fact that he had nothing else to do, as stated by Zola himself, was the sole reason why he had focused totally on football.
In part of the Interview Zola said: “When I was young I knew I had some qualities because I saw the players that I had around me and I saw what I could do, so I was just realizing that I had some abilities in playing football. But there was one year in particular when I really felt I had done a big step forward and it was when I was playing in the equivalent of the Conference league in England.
“It was in Italy and I was 17 years old and I was playing for this team, Nuorese, and it was the first year I was playing regularly in a team at a decent level. All of a sudden, and I remember this very vividly, I came to realize I was able to do things that before I could not do and everything I was imagining with my mind was coming true.
That was the moment I realized I stood a chance because I can control the game, I can control myself and that was a crucial moment for my career.” As for
Gianfranco Zola parents
, since he’s among the older footballers, there’s not much information at hand about them too, except that they are Joan and Ignatius Zola and that they were both farmers. Zola has also a sister called Silvia.
Gianfranco Zola Stats
As for
Gianfranco Zola stats
, we should say that the top former Italian footballer has only served one club outside Italian football and that is the Premier League club, Chelsea. And the interesting fact here is that he also served the same club the most and also made the most number of appearances and scored the most number of goals for during his career: Actually 80 goals in 311 appearances across all competitions which are at least two times higher than the number of appearances he made and the number of goals he scored for the other clubs he served during his career if indeed you exclude the 64 goals Zola scored for
Parmabetween 1993 and 1997.
Although Zola has scored more goals for
Chelseathan any other club during his career his goal-to-appearance ratio with Parma is better. He actually scored 64 goals in the 149 appearances that he made for the Italian club which gets him a goal-to-appearance ratio of almost 0.43 while his goal-to-appearance ratio with Chelsea is only 0.25 meaning that the top former Italian footballer scored more goals in less appearances with Parma than with Chelsea.
In general Zola has scored 238 goals in the 796 appearances that he has made for all the clubs he served during his career, namely the Serie D club, Nuorese, the Serie C club, Sassari Torres, Napoli, Parma, Chelsea, and Cagliari, which gets him an overall goal-to-appearance ratio of almost 0.3 meaning that the top Italian footballer scored almost one goal (exactly 0.9) in every 3 appearances that he made during his career.
And as a manager, Zola served 6 clubs including
West Ham United, Watford, Cagliari, the Qatari club, Al-Arabi, Birmingham City, and Chelsea - the last one as an assistant manager and from 2018 to 2019. He also managed the U16 Italian national team between 2011 and 2012. Zola also served the Italian national team between 1991 and 1997 and during this time made 35 appearances and scored 10 goals for them which translates to almost one goal in every 3 appearances. He also made 2 appearances and scored one goal for the Sardinia national team - Sardinia is one of the Italian islands in the Mediterranean Sea.
Gianfranco Zola Transfer Market Stats
As for
Gianfranco Zola transfer market stats
, we should say that the only Zola’s transfer fee unknown to us is the fee for which he left the Serie D club, Nuorese, and joined the Serie C club, Torres, in 1986, actually at the start of his career. Zola later joined Parma in 1989 for a transfer fee of 2 million Liras - Lira was Italy’s national currency between 1861 and 2002, and just 4 years later in 1993, Zola’s value leaped to more than 6 times higher: 13 million Liras. Maybe because of his performances and his top form? Maybe.
Then again, three years later in 1996, Zola was transferred to Chelsea for a fee of £4.5 million which is something around 9 million Liras. That means Zola’s value decreased just by 4 million Liras in 3 years, but indeed, he was still a top player when he joined Chelsea. And Zola’s move to
Cagliariin 2003 from Chelsea was on free transfer.
Gianfranco Zola Wife and Children
Delving more into facts about Gianfranco Zola we reach an aspect of his personal life: Gianfranco Zola wife and
Gianfranco Zola children
. Unfortunately there is not much information at hand about Gianfranco Zola wife and children. Either the top Italian footballer does not intend to reveal much about his personal life or maybe he’s less in the spotlight because of belonging to an older generation of football.
Despite what we just said above, there is little information at hand about Gianfranco Zola wife and children. For example, we know that the name of Gianfranco Zola wife is Franca and that the couple have three children together, but we don’t know where or when they got married to each other. We also know that the name of one of Zola’s children is Andrea - actually his son, and that he plays for the lower-tier English club,
Grays Athletic, and has played for the West Ham United reserves team. In the photo above, Zola and his wife are standing on the right.
Gianfranco Zola Net Worth and Salary
Part of the top
facts about Gianfranco Zola
is surely concerned with his net worth and salary which we don’t skip. As for
Gianfranco Zola net worth
, we should say it is estimated to be something around $32 million as of 2021, although some other sources claim that it is around $36 million. Whatever Gianfranco Zola net worth is we don’t know how it is distributed among his assets and properties. There is no information concerning, for instance, the worth of cars and houses Zola might have.
And as for
Gianfranco Zola salary
, we should say it is claimed to be something around $8 million, but again it is not determined for which period of his life Zola was paid such a salary; is it for now or the time he worked as Chelsea’s assistant manager? That’s not actually revealed. And it is also noteworthy to mention here that 10 years after Zola retired as a player, actually in 2015, he launched his own ice cream - let’s say his gelato (kind of an Italian frozen dessert) - brand called Unico.
He opened up his first gelato shop in the English town of Bromley in the same year with the help of his former Chelsea teammates, Andriy Shevchenko, Roberto Di Matteo and Dennis Wise, and by now, has opened up 4 other branches in London and one in Milan.
Gianfranco Zola Honors and Achievements
Let’s see how honorable Gianfranco Zola is! About Zola’s club trophies, you might guess that since the top former Italian footballer served Chelsea more than any other club during his career, he won the most number of club trophies with the same team, too. That’s right. Zola won 6 club trophies with Chelsea including two FA Cups in 1996-97 and 1999-2000 seasons and one
UEFA Super Cup, while he only won two trophies with Parma, one Serie A title with Napoli, and one Serie C title with Torres.
Zola has also some individual honors to his name including Serie A Top-Assist Provider in 1992-93 season, Chelsea Player of the Year in 1998-99 and 2002-03 seasons, and Football League Championship Manager of the Month in February 2013 - indeed as a manager. He was also honored with the Order of the British Empire in 2004 and was inducted into English Football Hall of Fame in 2006.
Gianfranco Zola Retirement and Style of Play
It was in June 2005 that Zola retired from professional football. At the time he was playing for the
Serie Aclub, Cagliari; the same club that he helped promote to Serie A in the season before. Cagliari retired No. 10 jersey in Zola’s honor, however, the jersey was worn the next season (2006-07) by the then Italian midfielder, Andrea Capone.
Zola’s retirement from international football actually occurred in 1997 when he was not chosen by the then Italy manager, Cesare Maldini, for the 1998 World Cup, although he had played in the same competition qualifying round and had also scored the winner - actually the only goal of the game - against England in the same round.
As for Zola’s style of play, we should say that although a forward, Zola was also used as a playmaking midfielder or winger because of his ability to create chances for his teammates and provide goal assists. Zola was known for his agility and ball skills which allowed him to quickly change direction when at ball’s possession and also beat the defenders with feints, in fact, in one on one situations.
And besides his dribbling and passing abilities, Zola was also a penalty and free kick specialist famed for his accuracy at bending shots and put the ball at the back of the net out of the goalkeeper’s reach. It should be noted here that Zola is actually the fifth highest goal scorer from free kicks in Serie A history with 20 goals behind the top former Italian footballers, Francesco Totti, Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero, and Andrea Pirlo.
Gianfranco Zola Social Media Accounts
Well, part of the top facts about Gianfranco Zola is surely concerned with his cyber life! As for
Gianfranco Zola social media accounts
, we should say that the top Italian footballer is not officially present on any of the top social medias, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We mean that there is no account associated with Gianfranco Zola that has the blue tick mark indicating that the account genuinely belongs to him.
However, on all the platforms mentioned above there are a few accounts with the Gianfranco Zola name on them - in Facebook more than the two other platforms. The Gianfranco Zola Facebook account that has the most number of followers and likes - actually more than 130,000 - has the same name - we mean Gianfranco Zola - but no blue tick.
The Twitter account with the Gianfranco Zola name and the most number of followers and tweets - actually 2684 followers and 1329 tweets - is
@FrankieZola, and finally, on Instagram, there are only two accounts associated with Gianfranco Zola one of which has more than 5400 posts but no followers and the other 33 posts and 183 followers.
Fast Facts About Gianfranco Zola
Here are some fast
facts about Gianfranco Zola
:
Gianfranco Zola is exactly 54 years, 8 months, and 22 days old as of now (March 27, 2021)
Gianfranco Zola zodiac sign is Cancer.
Gianfranco Zola loves ice cream. He once bought 20kg of ice cream in just one buy. He also runs his own ice cream business.
Gianfranco Zola is 168cm tall and weighs 68kg.
Gianfranco Zola features in FIFA video game series. He was also on the Ultimate Team Legends in FIFA14.
Gianfranco Zola’s nickname when he served Chelsea was “The Magic Box” probably for the magic he created on the pitch.
Gianfranco Zola’s jersey number when at Chelsea was 25, when at Parma 10 and 15, when at Cagliari 10, and when at Napoli 10, 16, 9, 11 and 15.
They said Zola appeared in a video for Bonnie Tyler's 1983 song "Total Eclipse of the Heart", but later in 2012 he rejected that.
Gianfranco Zola appeared in a music video for a song named after him, “Zola”, by the Wonder Villains band.
Gianfranco Zola also appeared in an episode of Renford Rejects show, where he was on the Rejects team and played a match against Renford Razors and Martin Keown.
Gianfranco Zola was voted Chelsea’s greatest player ever in 2003.
The first team Zola managed was West Ham United and in 2008.
Gianfranco Zola is not currently managing a team. The last team he served as a manager - better said assistant manager - was Chelsea and between 2018 and 2019.
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