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#7 Gianfranco Zola
Zola joined Chelsea from Parma for a bargain fee of £4.5m in November 1996 and proved an instant success. The Italian won the FWA Footballer of the Year award and became the first player to win the title despite not playing the whole season. The Italian fired Chelsea to a FA Cup title triumph, their trophy since 1970. Zola's attractive playing style immediately made him a fan favourite at Chelsea.
Zola ended the campaign with 12 goals and he netted 4 of those in that FA Cup run, including strikes against Portsmouth in the quarter-finals and Wimbledon in the semis. His arrival at the Stamford Bridge is seen as an important factor in Chelsea's renaissance, with the 1997 FA Cup win heralding the beginning of a trophy-laden spell that eventually led to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich buying the club in 2003.
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