He is the unfancied Italian who has returned to the Premier League and is 90 minutes away from delivering the greatest shock in the history of English football.
What Brian Clough achieved with Nottingham Forest was phenomenal but he was not operating in an age when the top clubs were fuelled by Middle Eastern Sheikhs and Russian Oligarchs.
Football was more democratic in the late Seventies. What Ranieri and Leicester are doing this season was supposed to be beyond the “normal” clubs – especially those that were circling the relegation plughole one season ago.
Ranieri’s appointment last season was greeted in underwhelming fashion, with supporters like Gary Lineker wondering aloud if the former Chelsea manager – who had most recently failed miserably at Greece – was the man to replace Nigel Pearson.
Claudio Ranieri? Really?
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) July 13, 2015
As they head to Manchester United needing three points to wrap up a first league title in their 132-year history (Fosse Way were founded in the same year as the Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884), any doubts about Ranieri’s suitability for the job have disappeared.
But how has he done it? How has this seemingly cheerful old chappy from Rome turned Leicester into Premier League champions elect?
Clearly a reactive, counter-attacking, possession-light game built on the speed and efficiency of Player of Year Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy, Mark Albrighton and Shinji Okazaki has been the tactical basis. That and a defence that has been shored up in the second half of the season.
But, apart from Okazaki, Christian Fuchs and the wonderful N’Golo Kante, this is effectively the same team that struggled for long stages of last season. How has Ranieri, with his trips to pizzerias and imaginary “dilly ding, dilly dong” bell, got his message across?
Well, in a wonderful profile in today’s Daily Telegraph, Jason Burt relays “the television incident” from Ranieri’s time at Chelsea that maybe gives us a glimpse at the steel behind the smile.
“It may be an apocryphal story but it did the rounds at Chelsea at the time. Late one night, Ranieri, or so it is alleged, realised one of his players was sitting up watching TV at the team hotel rather than sleeping. He knocked on the player’s door, strode into the hotel room, and ripped out the TV set before leaving.”
How very rock and roll. So rock and roll we are choosing to believe that story and also choosing to imagine that, after the game the next day, Ranieri brought the whole team – bar the TV watcher – out for pizza.
Rock on Claudio, rock on.
