Wilfried Zaha leaves Crystal Palace with ‘best ever’ legacy intact
Football was mine, more specifically Crystal Palace. Like my dad, and his dad before him, a hypnotherapist for the promotion-winning squad of 1978-79 under Terry Venables, all of us born and raised in South Norwood, a stone’s throw from the stadium.
Former England manager Sir Bobby Robson wonderfully described falling under football’s spell as: ‘It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city.
‘It’s a small boy clambering up the stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.’
For me that was Selhurst Park. And, later, that was Wilfried Zaha too. So pull up a chair, and let me tell you how Dazet Wilfried Armel Zaha changed my life.
Wilfried Zaha leaves Crystal Palace this summer with his legacy intact as the club’s G.O.A.T.The South London star has delivered magic moments like few others at his hometown club
Promising beginnings
I can’t actually remember his debut, a 2-1 loss against Cardiff in March 2010 when he replaced Stern John in the 80th minute, aged 17.
The month after, he signed his first pro contract, and the month after that Palace saved themselves from relegation with a 2-2 draw against Sheffield Wednesday, in the tensest game I’ve ever seen, at Hillsborough on the final day of the season.
That summer, minutes away from going into liquidation, a raucous protest outside Lloyds in London persuaded the bank to sell to local-boy-done-good Steve Parish and three Palace-supporting friends, turning a fresh page in the club’s history.
The first game of that new era was Leicester City at home, Zaha making his first senior start up front. Nineteen minutes in, Route One, Julian Speroni wallops the ball up to big Alan Lee. He flicks it on, Michael Morrison misjudges it, and, suddenly, running onto it is a skinny teenaged boy in a shirt four sizes too big wearing No 16.
The crowd takes a sudden collective intake of breath.
On Zaha’s first start for Palace, he scored a gloriously instinctive half-volley against Leicester
Zaha was four when parents Tiendé and Armel relocated the family from Abidjan, the largest city in the Ivory Coast, to Thornton Heath, South London, in search of a better life.
He had eight siblings so things were a little crowded in the family home, a three-bed terraced house on Rothesay Road, the Selhurst Park floodlights soaring high above the tiled roofs.
Like countless other boys he idolised Chelsea’s Ivorian striker Didier Drogba, and unlike countless other boys, he dreamed of playing for Crystal Palace.
Aged 12, that dream was realised. Dougie Freedman, now sporting director, offered him a contract with seven people excitedly squeezed into one room in that house and Wilf signed without even looking at it.
So it was a heck of a journey from Abidjan to the 19th minute of that match against Leicester. But if he realised the significance of that moment, he didn’t show it.
With destiny in his grasp, close enough to see goalkeeper Chris Weale’s eyes, relying on pure instinct, he sort of half-volley-karate-kicked it into the top corner.
I still have no idea how he did it.
Fellow Palace academy product Kieron Cadogan then set up another of the goals in a 3-2 win. The Zaha epoch had begun.
His journey from a shy four-year-old local boy to the club’s best ever has been astounding
Catching the eye
Palace fans watched on blissfully, gleefully, disbelievingly as Zaha ripped Manchester United apart in a 2-1 League Cup win in 2011 that put him onto the radar of the big clubs.
At relegation-threatened Peterborough’s London Road stadium in November 2012, play-off chasing Palace 1-0 down with 10 minutes left, a beautiful improvised flick from Zaha – on his 20th birthday – set up Andre Moritz’ equaliser.
Two minutes after that, a corner was cleared and Zaha received the ball inside his own penalty area. He ran 70 yards, past half the opposition team, and fed Kagisho Dikgacoi, who smashed it in to send us top of the Championship.
After the game Posh boss Darren Ferguson gushed: ‘Zaha is the best player in this league and will go to the top. He was unplayable at times.’ We don’t know exactly what he said to his dad, legendary United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, on the phone that night but it probably started with ‘just f***ing sign’ and ended with ‘that kid’.
Ferguson Sr did so in January – but Zaha insisted he stay on loan at Palace for the rest of the season so he could finish the job he started and get the club promoted.
In the play-off semi-final second leg, in the enemy territory of bitter arch-rivals Brighton and with stricken 30-goal striker Glenn Murray out injured he scored the two gorgeously, viscerally celebrated second-leg goals to single-handedly fire Palace to Wembley.
Then in the final against hot favourites Watford, he tormented Italian international Marco Cassetti throughout and won the penalty leading to Kevin Phillips’ winner, sprinting around with joyous abandon at full-time as if he would burst from the sheer emotion if he ever stopped. It was some farewell gift.
The retiring Ferguson – arguably the greatest British manager ever – then bequeathed Zaha to his successor David Moyes, his last ever signing, passing the generational baton with a generational talent.
+14 View galleryZaha’s joyous celebration after the winner against Brighton is an iconic Crystal Palace momentHe lifted the play-off trophy in his final match before moving to Manchester United for £15m
Abandoned by Manchester United
A young, raw, skilful, preternaturally gifted but mercurial winger arrived at Old Trafford with big dreams, struggled initially but showed flashes of his explosive potential. Under Ferguson’s tutelage, Cristiano Ronaldo arguably became the best player in the world. See any parallels?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Zaha would have become the best in the world. But I’ll swear to my dying day he always had the ability to excel at United, but was never given the opportunity.
His time at Old Trafford is widely seen as a failure, despite only starting twice: in the Community Shield against Wigan and a League Cup tie against Norwich (both wins) before leaving for Cardiff on loan in January after two league appearances, off the bench.
While other less gifted wingers like Adnan Januzaj played 35 games that season, Zaha often wasn’t even given the chance to sit on the bench as the club refused to defend him from false accusations of liaisons with Moyes’ daughter.
Still just a boy, really, the club abandoned Zaha as he struggled to adapt to living away from home and family for the first time, dealing with the disappointment of being frozen out – and when Moyes was sacked, successor Louis van Gaal didn’t do much better.
The Dutchman told Zaha – at that stage an out-and-out winger – he was either a wing-back or a striker. When the 21-year-old was shackled by world-class defenders like Inter’s Nemanja Vidic and Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos in pre-season friendlies, he was cast aside again, rejoining Palace on loan in August 2014.
Palace TV’s Chris Grierson simply said: ‘Welcome Home’. Two days after that, the player who writes his own scripts came off the bench against Newcastle and scored a 95th-minute equaliser. The Eagles brought him back permanently in January.
Four hundred and fifty-eight games and 90 goals later, the boy who grew up in the shadow of the stadium stands taller than anyone else in Palace’s history.
Zaha has scored 90 goals in 458 Crystal Palace appearances. Graphic credit: sofascore.com
Cadogan, his team-mate that day against Leicester, hails his long-term transformation from boy to man to legend while speaking exclusively to Mail Sport.
He said: ‘I don’t think Wilf’s a one-trick pony (now), he’s not all about pace. He’s got great feet, he’s got skills to get himself out of any sticky situation.
‘Of course as you get older you’re going to have to adapt your game a little bit, but he’s got a good first touch. He can drift inside rather than going outside, there’s many ways he can adapt and I don’t think that’s a question mark over his head at all.’
The 32-year-old, who works for production company Total Media Limited and still struts his stuff for Sevenoaks Town FC, laughs when asked if Zaha is Palace’s G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time).
‘He’s probably up there with the most effective player. Best ever… Maybe Ian Wright, Clinton Morrison, absolute legends of the club. Best ever is such a broad question, it’s difficult to answer. I’m going to have to plead the Fifth on that one!’
No such doubts from this journalist.
Magic moments
The Hometown hero’s stats are pretty impressive. More Premier League goals than Kevin De Bruyne, David Beckham, David Silva, Gianfranco Zola and Gareth Bale; as many top-flight assists as Freddie Ljungberg, Paul Ince and John Barnes.
Among wingers with at least 100 Premier League appearances since 2015-16, Opta stats reveal: he ranks top for matches played (260), successful dribbles (848), fouls won (775), ground duels won (1,949); second for penalties won (18); sixth for goals (64) and shots (474); seventh for big chances created (42) and tenth for assists (26).
Still, he’s never been one of those players you can nail down or define by raw data. He’s not simply a player of zeros and ones, of black and white. He’s a kaleidoscopic explosion of colour and soul. Most of all, he’s a deliverer of magic moments.
Him and Yannick Bolasie combining with vicious aplomb against Huddersfield, and against Palace Women’s team in a training session. An incredibly imaginative acrobatic volley against Swansea. A scarcely believable double against Wolves.
Among Premier League wingers with at least 1,000 minutes played since 2015-2016
