Whenever you mention Luca – and he was Luca to us all at Chelsea – people just smile. He gave me my debut as an 18-year-old in 1998 when he was player-manager and at a time when there was no certainty I would get it. But you ask anyone from that youth team, even those who did not get their chance under him, and they will all say the same thing: that they loved him. He was special. Nobody will ever find a bad word to say about Luca.
Luca made everyone feel like they were his friend. And there were probably thousands of people who felt that way, even those who only met him once. At the…
