Gianfranco Zola isolating with family in Sardinia as Chelsea legend’s beloved Italy fights against coronavirus

WEMBLEY would have been a sell-out for tonight’s friendly between England and Italy.

Over 80,000 fans, including 2,000 Italians, were expected for the friendly and Euro 2020 warm-up game.

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Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola is self-isolating in SardiniaCredit: Getty

Instead, the national stadium will be empty. As it will also be between June and July when the tournament was due to be staged.

Instead, both England and Italy find themselves deep into a crisis which has struck the entire world.

Italy, so far, has been hardest hit by the coronavirus and while many former Azzurri players would have tuned into the match in London, their priorities are now keeping safe and well.

Premier League legend Gianfranco Zola lives in London but has returned to be with his loved ones on the island of Sardinia.

The former Chelsea striker, 53, who also managed West Ham, Watford and Birmingham, was Maurizio Sarri’s assistant at Stamford Bridge until last year.

Zola scored ten times in 35 appearances for Italy, including the winner at Wembley in a World Cup qualifier in 1997.

And he was due to be at Wembley tonight to watch the game before the spread of the coronavirus.

He said: “Usually I live in London but since a few days ago, I came back to my birthplace, Sardinia, with all of my family. We are well and we respect all the instructions being made by the authorities.

“For me now football is not important. It comes after people’s health and then a world economic restart. Only then we will be able to think to play and follow football again but I don’t know when.

“Because I usually live in London, I am in contact every day with some friends of mine there.

“Hopefully one day, we can get this England-Italy game on because it will mean the nightmare has finished.”

Giancarlo Antognoni was a star midfielder in the 1970s and eighties for Fiorentina and Italy.

We need to make sacrifices and listen to what authorities tell us

Giancarlo Antognoni

He played 73 games for the national team, scoring seven goals and made six appearances at the 1982 World Cup in Spain but missed the final with an injury. Now, Antognoni, 65, is general club manager for Fiorentina in Serie A.

He said: “Unfortunately this is a difficult period for everyone but I have got my own family with me and that’s important.

“We need to make sacrifices and listen to what authorities tell us but I trust this virus will disappear as soon as possible.

“In Fiorentina, we have got Dusan Vlahovic, German Pezzella and Patrick Cutrone who have tested positive for Covid-19 but, after being frightened, they stay better and of course we are happy about it.

“I don’t know when we will be able to restart Italian and international football.”

700 DYING EVERY DAY

Former Middlesbrough and Juventus striker Fabrizio Ravanelli won 22 caps for the Azzurri, scoring eight goals.

Ravanelli, 51, said: “There isn’t a present or future for football, not only in Italy or in England.

“Now it is superfluous speaking about football thinking on coronavirus. As our FA chief Damiano Tommasi is saying, the most important thing now is footballer’s health and anything else comes after that.”

Inter Milan legend Giuseppe Bergomi won the World Cup with Italy in 1982 and picked up 81 caps for his country, with three of those against England.

He said: “It is very difficult talking about football when now in Italy more than seven hundred people die every day.

“I live in Milan and here there is pandemonium and during the day I often hear ambulance sirens.

“So, we don’t know when we will be able to follow our beloved sport again.

“Now football is the last of the problems because the most important thing is to be alive.”

Gianfranco Zola fought for glory on the pitch, now he is hoping his beloved Italy wins the fight against coronavirusCredit: Times Newspapers Ltd

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk