AND then there was Zola. Italy and exParma midfielder Gianfranco Zola flew into London yesterday to take up his new employment with Chelsea. For Italian soccer, Zola's transfer to England rounds off a dismal fortnight at the end of a dismal summer and autumn. To suggest that Italian soccer is in crisis is merely to state the obvious.
The most recent rot set in two weeks ago when both AS Roma and Lazio were eliminated from the UEFA Cup. One week later, Italy were beaten 2-1 by Bosnia in Sarajevo in a friendly strong on sporting solidarity and weak on decent soccer from the Italians.
And then there was Zola.
On the international front, the five months since Juventus defeated Ajax Amsterdam to win the European Champions Cup in Rome last May have been unusually bleak. First round eliminations for fancied Italian teams at both Euro 96 and the Atlanta Olympics paved the way for a UEFA Cup which sees Parma, Lazio and AS Roma already out after two rounds. Even the mighty AC Milan have already lost two out of four Champions' League games.
All of that is bad enough, but of perhaps even more long term significance is this summer's player migration out of Italian and into English soccer, an exodus led by Chelsea's Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Di Matteo and including Middlesbrough's Fabrizio Ravanelli and Sheffield Wednesday's Benito Carbone.
None of the above transfers, however, may prove as significant as that of Zola. Unlike Vialli, Ravanelli or Di Matteo, Zola is a quintessentially Italian talent, a genuine midfield playmaker of Mediterranean subtlety. Ravanelli, Vialli and Di Matteo are all very good footballers, make no mistake. Yet all three are combative players whose technique is matched by sheer physical power and determination. Zola is different. He is the little fellow with the fancy touches - the schemer, the plotter, call him what you may.
In short, Zola is precisely the sort of player who might have been expected to flourish in Italian soccer. His technical skills, his "good feet" were perfect for what is often considered the most technically demanding league championship in the world.
Yet, Zola has been unceremoniously dumped by Parma where team coach Carlo Ancelotti could find no better function for him than to play him as a right-sided midfielder with covering duties.
Zola's experience at Parma is not an isolated phenomenon. In recent seasons, Montenegrin Dejan Savicevic at AC Milan, Roberto Baggio at AC Milan, Alessandro Del Piero at Juventus, Portugal's Rui Costa at Fiorentina, Francesco Totti at AS Roma are just some well known names who have had to adapt their quintessentially "number 10" creative game to comply with a 4-4-2 module which burdens all four midfielders with extensive defensive as well as offensive duties.
The land that cultivated midfield generals such as Gianni Rivera, Sandro Mazzola and Giancarlo Antognoni suddenly has no need for technical virtuosi. Writing in La Repubblica last week, Gianni Mura, for long one of the most astute of Italian soccer writers, commented: "And now, it's Gianfranco Zola's turn ... At this point, I'll say it loud and clear. Italian soccer is not sick, it is moribund.
"Here, we no longer have room for artists, for the great talents, the midfield generals - the panda bears of soccer, an endangered species"
This summer's crisis, from Euro 96 to Zola, is complex and obviously comprises many different factors. The growing commercial power of English (Spanish and German as well) soccer has clearly damaged Italy, enabling English clubs to offer higher wages than their Italian counterparts and thus reversing the trend of the last 30 years. (Zola, by the way, is on approximately £1 million a year).
Part of the Italian crisis, though, relates to the way soccer itself has evolved on the pitch. Today's faster, more aggressive game dominated by sides which concentrate as much on chasing and pressurising opponents out of the game as on creative attacking soccer certainly does not favour the Baggio's or Zola's of this world.
That tactical evolution is not exclusive to Italian soccer. The same lament is to be heard all round the world, after every World Cup or European Championships. In Italy, however, the evolution bears, above all, one name, a name little liked just at the moment - Arrigo Sacchi, current Italy coach.
As coach to AC Milan for a highly successful period between 1987 and 1991, Sacchi not only definitively introduced the 4-4-2 game to Italy but he did so in a winning way. Others watched, learned and followed suit. The difference between the others and Milan, or indeed the difference between Sacchi's Milan and his Italy, was the prodigious talent of Dutchmen Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard. In the end, the talented Dutch trio probably counted for far more than Sacchi's schemes.
The circle appeared to round itself nicely last week as Sacchi's Italy provided another of its now habitually dismal and dull performances when being beaten 2-1 by Bosnia. Next day, Parma sold Zola to Chelsea.
Now who is the Parma coach? Carlo Ancelotti, a man whose greatest footballing years were under Arrigo Sacchi at Milan and who then went on to serve as assistant to Sacchi with the Italian team. The sacrifice of a player like Zola fits in perfectly with the logic of the Sacchi-Ancelotti tactical credo. The sacrifice of Zola may represent one transfer too far for Italian soccer.
