Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola recently talked about the memory of Tino Asprilla, former Newcastle Player once missing training at Parma because he fell asleep on the side of the road on his way back from a party – but the Italian has paid tribute to a ‘fantastic team-mate’ who had ‘unbelievable potential’. Newcastle United broke their transfer record to sign Asprilla for £6.7m in February 1996 and Zola followed the Colombia superstar to the Premier League nine months later when he joined Chelsea.
Gianfranco Zola said “One day I think we were all in training and we started training in the morning and so we go on the pitch and we looked at each other and said, ‘Where’s Asprilla? Where’s Tino?’ Tino wasn’t there so we said he must have fell asleep. We said we would look for him in his house. The coach said he didn’t find him – he wasn’t in his house. This guy went to a party that night and on the way back, he just dropped on the side of the road and he fell asleep so they found him still asleep on the side of the road. Well that was Tino. A fantastic team-mate. Very good. Always creating a good atmosphere and in my opinion, he had unbelievable potential.”
