{"id":156501,"date":"2025-09-23T23:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156501\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T23:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:58:08","slug":"ryder-cup-ex-chelsea-star-zola-gets-unlikely-role-with-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156501\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryder Cup: Ex-Chelsea star Zola gets unlikely role with Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Chelsea<\/a> star Gianfranco Zola is a surprise member of Europe’s Ryder Cup backroom team.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And now he is behind the wheel again after becoming vice captain Francesco Molinari<\/a>‘s designated driver of his on-course buggy.<\/p>\n

– What is the Ryder Cup? 2025 format, teams, all-time winners<\/a>
– Donald: Fans could turn on fee-earning U.S. stars<\/a>
– Bradley disputes Ryder Cup pay-for-play narrative<\/a><\/p>\n

Zola, who is a keen golfer, has struck up a friendship with his fellow Italian and has been invited into Luke Donald<\/a>‘s backroom team.<\/p>\n

As well as ferrying Molinari 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.<\/p>\n

Europe vice-captain Francesco Molinari, and his driver Gianfranco Zola, during a practice round before the 2025 Ryder Cup.\u00a0Vaughn Ridley\/Sportsfile via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Europe are bracing themselves for a raucous atmosphere from a heavily partisan home support.<\/p>\n

Zola said on Sky Sports: “First of all you have to be able to enter in a kind of protection bubble.<\/p>\n

“This is one of the first things you need to learn when you play football because the environment is like that.<\/p>\n

“So you need to use it to your advantage, you have to get motivated by that and you can work it out.<\/p>\n

“From what I see, they look so easy so it shouldn’t be a problem.”<\/p>\n

Zola has been out of football since leaving his role as Chelsea assistant manager in 2019.<\/p>\n

He previously had spells as manager of West Ham, Watford, Cagliari<\/a>, Al-Arabi and Birmingham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Chelsea star Gianfranco Zola is a surprise member of Europe’s Ryder Cup backroom team. The 59-year-old was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-156501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}