Has time run out for football’s nicest guy?

THINK Italian manager and the dapper Roberto Mancini springs to mind; an elegant fellow who can even tie a blue and white scarf round his neck with panache.

Then there is Fabio Capello, the Godfather type. Who would dare make an enemy of a man with such a reptilian stare, a man who summons errant millionaires to his headquarters to humiliate them like naughty schoolboys?

Gianfranco Zola, it has to be said, fits into neither category. His diminutive figure is hardly enhanced by the cut of his West Ham tracksuit and as for being a mafia don, he’s just too damned smiley.