Zola!

Gianfranco Zola was born in Sardinia on the 5th of July 1966, only a couple of days after West Ham was the first, and so far only, club team to win the World Cup (admittedly with a little help from some squad players).
As a player he was an excellent play maker and delivered some magnificent free-kicks. He was technical gifted and known for his technique and skills. He earned his first professional contract when he, as an 18 year old, signed for the Sardinian club Nuorese in 1984. In 1987 he left them and went to Torres where he played for a couple of years before he joined Napoli in Serie A in 1989.
”I learned everything from Diego. I used to spy on him every time he trained and learned how to curl a free-kick just like him.”
When joining Napoli he got one of the world greatest players ever as a team mate and Zola made the best of it even though he was perceived as the great ones understudy when winning the title in 1990. In 1991 he went on to help Napoli winning the Italian Super Cup and later that year he made the first of 35 appearances for the Italian national team. He scored 10 goals during the process.
In 1993 he went from Napoli to Parma where he played together with the infamous Tomas Brolin amongst others. They won the UEFA-cup and the Italian Cup and became runners up in the league before joining...

Wait a minute, something happened there and it appears that Zola went in to a black hole for seven long seasons. Some rumours says that he was very succesful during those years and that he was voted the best player ever to play for that team.
After that unfortunate spell he went back to Italy to play for Cagliari in 2003. He played there for two seasons before retiring without thinking about going in to management.

2 years ago he was lured into management by his former team mate Pierluigi Casiraghi who had become manager for the Italian under-21 team. The pair led their team to the olympics where they reached the quarter finale where the Belgian team became to strong and they lost by 3 goals to 2. Now it seems like he´s the new West Ham manager.
If you go by his statements it sounds like a manager who knows how to play the West Ham way.
”I only know one way to play: on the floor, attacking football, the way things should be done. I want to excite people, that is why we play, isn´t it? This is a new era, a new chapter for me. I was an offensive player, who only knew one way to play. That is how my teams will always play.”
This could be interpreted in a couple of ways depending on what you like to think about him. Is he tactical inept manager or is he just a PR genius who tells us what we, as West Ham fans, like to hear? Time will tell...

Disregard the "posted by" note below, all credit for this post goes to Dicks!