Holy Crap, It’s Claudio Ranieri!

By: Martha | February 13th, 2007

Claudio Ranieri: Smart, Adorable, and Nice to Kids! Before the arrival in England of the great Jose Mourinho, my heart belonged to his predecessor at Chelsea, one Claudio Ranieri. On an international walk-about after finding success in Italy with Cagliari (who he guided from Serie C1 to Serie A in an unthinkable four years) and Fiorentina, among others, Ranieri arrived in England on the heels of lots of winning in Spain, with Valencia. At the beginning, he didn’t really fit in. His English wasn’t great, and he had this awesome weird, intellectual way about him that freaked the hell out of most of the British press. He would sometimes just look at them and laugh at something in his own head, which is not the sort of thing the press were used to from the self-important egomaniacs (*cough* Alex Ferguson *cough*) by whom they were usually surrounded.

But Ranieri is no just weird, he’s good, and he improved the club’s position dramatically even before Roman Abramovich arrived with his millions, earning himself some love from supporters and the media. The moment things started to go south, though, the “Tinkerman” label came back, and Ranieri’s difficulty in dealing with the massive squad Abramovich bought him led to his departure from the club. I have no idea how Chelsea supporters felt about this, but it made me sad (until I saw Mourinho for the first time, at least) — he’s a classy, clever manager, complete with quirks of behavior (including periodic explosions of honesty) that made him a hell of a lot more appealing that a lot of his compatriots.

ANYWAY. This fit of nostalgia is being imposed upon you not (just) because I saw Ranieri in the stands during a game I watched this weekend (Newcastle-Liverpool, maybe? God knows what he was doing there. He looked sort of old.), or because I woke up thinking about him. It’s actually relevant to Serie A — he’s been brought in the try to save Parma! Hooray! Ranieri is back! Whether he’s going to be able to keep what seems to be an utterly dismal team up is anyone’s guess, but whatever happens, things will be a little brighter with him around.