"It's not just his goals, but the way he controls the ball, takes free-kicks - and when he beat two players against Manchester City recently, I just said 'oh my God' to myself.
"It's hard to name any player who can compare to him because every week, people are still worried about him. At his age, sometimes that can go away a bit - but not with him. He still shocks people.''
"When I arrived at the club, I couldn't believe that I was on the pitch with him. He was one of the players who you pretended to be when you were growing up, like Pele or Maradona.
"The things he does in training are just so unbelievable. He is so good at the basic things and then he adds his quality on top of that, which makes him superb.
"It's about 80% natural and 20% practice. If I was to say 50-50, that would bring his natural quality down and I don't think you can get that much quality just by training hard.
"When I came here, he also spent so much time helping me and answering my questions. That is very important when you arrive at a new club.''
Meanwhile, Gianfranco himself has urged his fellow Blues not to let the Champions League place slip. He said, "In the past we've made a few mistakes looking at results of other teams and playing off them, this time we should only be looking at ourselves."