Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola is a surprise member of Europe’s Ryder Cup backroom team.
The 59-year-old was a driving force of Chelsea’s rise to the top of English football in the late 1990s, winning two FA Cups, a League Cup and a UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.
And now he is behind the wheel again after becoming vice captain Francesco Molinari’s designated driver of his on-course buggy.
“I didn’t know he was coming this week,” Justin Rose said. “So it was a huge surprise, and literally, one of the first people I bumped into. I was coming around the corner hotel to the lifts and bumped into him.
“I was just saying out there, I meet a lot of really cool people in my life through the game of golf. But I was like, “Whoa! Wow! Hey, Gianfranco!” I was starstruck which is amazing.”
Zola, who is a keen golfer, has struck up a friendship with his fellow Italian and has been invited into Luke Donald’s backroom team.
As well as ferrying Moliniari around the brutal Bethpage Black course in New York, Zola has also been able to impart some knowledge of how to deal with hostile crowds.
Europe are bracing themselves for a racous atmosphere from a heavily partisan home support.
Zola said on Sky Sports: “First of all you have to be able to enter in a kind of protection bubble.
“This is one of the first things you need to learn when you play football because the environment is like that.
“So you need to use it to your advanttage, you have to get motivated by that and you can work it out.
“From what I see, they look so easy so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Zola has been out of football since leaving his role as Chelsea assistant manager in 2019.
He previously had spells as manager of West Ham, Watford, Cagliari, Al-Arabi and Birmingham City.
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