Gianfranco Zola comes across as anything but a hard man, but the soft-spoken Sardinian feels that his native toughness has a lot to do with his ability to take the battering that is a Premiership striker's lot and, at the age of 32, to keep coming back for more.
"`We are made from very strong rock," he says with his characteristic broad smile. "There's a very hard rock in Sardinia called granito. Sardinian granite is very, very difficult to wear down." If granite is more readily associated with Chelsea stars of the past such as Ron Harris and Mickey Droy than with the nimble-footed Zola, he can point to a string of rock-solid performances amid the comings and goings of Chelsea's forward line this season which left him top of the club's scorers' table.
He's the first to admit, though, that his strength and Chelsea's resilience this season have a lot to do with Gianluca Vialli's approach to training and to his Italian fitness coach, Antonio Pintus, who has the whole squad on personalised physical conditioning regimes. Zola, for example, does special work on his "explosivity".
"I'm feeling much better than I used to feel three or four years ago. I would say that physically speaking I haven't lost any qualities compared to a few years ago. The way I train now in certain ways I have improved my power, my strength." After a fine goal against Valerenga in midweek, Zola was rested in the second half in readiness for tomorrow's match.
As games go, they don't come much bigger than tomorrow's clash between Manchester United and Chelsea. First in the Premiership takes on second with a place in the FA Cup semi-finals at stake. The two league encounters between the clubs this season have both ended in draws so the match also has the air of a symbolic decider, perhaps offering the chance of a psychological edge for the title run-in. It's just the sort of occasion Zola revels in. Like last season when he fought his way back from injury to come off the bench and score the goal that won the Cup Winners' Cup for Chelsea with a sweet half-volley - an awesome demonstration of "explosivity".
"It's a big game and I like to play well in big games. Of course, I try to play my best all the time but there's certain games where it's easy to get the right boost.
"When Chelsea play Manchester United - even if it's only a friendly - it's always a very important game." Zola has more reason than most to relish the prospect. At Old Trafford in December it was he who darted on to a through ball and flicked it past the advancing Schmeichel to earn Chelsea a point. Zola has photographic recall of all his close encounters with Schmeichel, going back to his first season when he walked through the United defence before slipping the ball between a rooted Schmeichel and the post. At Stamford Bridge this season it was Zola who had the best chance to break the deadlock, but the big Dane managed to deflect his shot just wide.
"Talking about that particular occasion (at Stamford Bridge last December) I had problems controlling the ball. The first touch was poor and I put myself in a difficult position to take the shot. So I tried to make up for it by putting the ball as low as possible. But I couldn't keep the ball low enough and it just touched his heel. "He (Schmeichel) is very good when he comes out from his goal. He's very good because he can cover a lot of the goal. He makes your shot very difficult." Last year, the two teams met in the third round and the Reds put five past Chelsea on their home patch before three late goals which barely saved face. Zola contends that Chelsea were going through the worst moment of their season at the time while United were on a high. Certainly with the two league fixtures producing just two goals, odds on another 5-3 will be generous.
Zola arrived on the English scene with a bang in November 1996. The former Parma player was named Footballer of the Year despite not playing the whole of that first season and while Mark Hughes and Gianluca Vialli fought for one striking berth, Zola's place seemed secure. But just over a year ago he hit his lowest point when, struggling for form, he was dropped for the visit of Barnsley in January and cut a sad figure as he jogged around the pitch as the stadium emptied with the other unused subs.
His form this season has been outstanding - a favourite Zola word. Even with the team going through a relatively poor patch in recent weeks, Zola was able to pull one of his trademark free-kicks out of a hat to distinguish an otherwise grim match against Southampton and claim all three points for Chelsea.
Zola's record of goals scored direct from free-kicks in Serie A is currently under threat from Lazio's Sinisa Mihailovic. Zola is unconcerned - "records are made to be broken" - but he is also England's current top deadball specialist. Talk of another free-kick expert, however, has him waxing rhapsodic. Zola arrived at Napoli as a 23-year-old straight from Serie C, the Italian third division, to find himself training alongside the world's best player, Diego Maradona.
"He was outstanding. In my formation as a player, his presence, his influence is tremendous.
"As a boy I had a lot of dreams, I would like to do this, I would like to do that. I would like to score a goal like that. I used to be fantasising all the time. I think I have got a brilliant imagination. But he used to do everything I had in my fantasy."
Although he trained pretty much when he felt like it, Maradona was popular. "He had problems maybe with the club, but he was very good to us. Brilliant. If you ask about Maradona to any of the team-mates he had in his career I think no one will speak badly about him." Zola has spoken before of his desire to end his career in Sardinia. His Chelsea contract runs through to 2002 when he will be 35. Chances are, though, that this particular chunk of Sardinian rock will still be rolling.
Match live on Sky Sports 2, Tomorrow 1pm. Kick-off 2pm.
