Gabriele Marcotti - Hail, Claudio!: The Man, the Manager, the Miracle

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Epub ISBN: 9781473547247

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Copyright Gabriele Marcotti 2016

Gabriele Marcotti has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published in hardback by Yellow Jersey Press in 2016

First published in paperback by Yellow Jersey Press in 2017

penguin.co.uk/vintage

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

To my parents, who blessed me with
love and guidance at every turn.
Gabriele

To my father, who took me on the
journey to football.
Alberto

Gabriele Marcotti

IT WAS A sweltering, humid July day in Bristol, Connecticut, when my phone vibrated into life. I had stopped to pick up a sandwich in a strip mall on the way to the ESPN campus, where I was due to tape the ESPNFC show, and was walking across the car park balancing my meal, car keys, wallet and phone.

I put the sandwich down on the bonnet of my rental car to take the call. A guy named Ian Stringer, a reporter for BBC Radio Leicester was on the other end.

We all find it hard to believe, he told me, but we have good information that Claudio Ranieri will be appointed tomorrow to fill the Leicester City vacancy. Would I come on the radio in a half hour to talk about what Ranieri had been up to since his departure from Chelsea, back in 2004?

I agreed. And for the next ten minutes I stood there, raiding my brain about Ranieri and what had happened in the fifteen years since I first met him. Deep in thought, I found myself staring out at the traffic on Route 10 rather than seeking the air-conditioned refuge of the car.

I remembered he had not been a popular choice when he replaced Gianluca Vialli as the Chelsea boss back in September 2000. Or, rather, he was a relative unknown appointed by an autocratic owner (Ken Bates), didnt speak the language and was taking over from a much-loved former player-manager who was charismatic and well-spoken.

That was not a good recipe. Especially not in 2000, when the Premier League was a very different place. Foreign managers in fact, foreigners full-stop were still somewhat exotic. They were viewed with suspicion, hired guns who saw football in an unfamiliar way, who brought alternative methods, tactics and mannerisms into England, accelerating the changes that had already been set in motion by the Bosman ruling in 1996 and the creation of the Premier League in 1992.

Ranieris penchant for squad rotation and switching formations, even in the course of the same game, made him weird and different. Hence, that Tinkerman moniker which was actually kinder than some of the others directed at him in the press: Clownio and Crazy Claudio are two that come to mind.

He signed on to become a columnist for The Times and I was his ghostwriter. There was a certain formality in our relationship, something that I thought unusual for many years, indeed, until I began researching this book.

Ranieri is from Rome, yet he didnt speak or act like the Romans I knew. There was a quiet warmth to him, a ritual politeness. Years later, people would start talking about him as a gentleman and now its clear. Thats what he is. His wife once jokingly complained that when he returned to manage Roma, he had become Roman again in the way he spoke and acted. And when he left the capital, he once again adopted the characteristics we know today: passion without volume, enthusiasm without bluster, cosiness without overbearance, kindness without familiarity. I was struck by the fact that never once did I hear him complain about the way he was often mocked in the media. Football managers need to be thick-skinned, sure, but its one thing to criticise choices, another to make it personal.

The tide began to turn after Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, something which would not have occurred without the team beating Liverpool on the final day of the 200203 season, a game that allowed the club to survive in the short-term and thrive in the long-term.

I was in Miami Beach that day. A close friend and Chelsea fan was getting married later on. We got up early to watch the match in a dark sports bar, a block from the Atlantic Ocean. When we emerged into the sunshine, I thought of Ranieri and how maybe next season hed get some more respect.

Instead, he got sympathy, because it soon became clear that, despite protestations to the contrary, he was not going to be a part of Chelseas long-term plans. Which was fine. He faced it all and stood tall. He cracked just once and, unfortunately for him, it was on the biggest stage of all: a Champions League semi-final against Monaco.

I followed his career from a distance, only speaking to him occasionally after he left Stamford Bridge. I noted how, time and again at Parma, at Juventus, at Roma he defied the odds. I knew how badly he wanted to return to England, how this countrys football was, in many ways, his natural habitat.

I finished my Ranieri daydream when the phone vibrated again for the BBC Radio Leicester interview. I was drenched in sweat by the midday sun. My sub sandwich (more specifically, a Grinder as its known in that part of the world) had effectively become a toasted panini on the hot bonnet of the car.

I dont exactly remember what I told BBC Radio Leicester that day about Ranieris prospects with the Foxes. Probably something about him being a safe pair of hands who tended to perform best in adverse conditions and was happy to work with what was available.

What I do know for certain is that I never imagined what would come next.

Nobody did.

Alberto Polverosi

I HAVE A love-hate relationship with my favourite restaurant on the Croatian island of Hvar.

Pros: The seabass goes directly from sea to net to oven to plate to stomach in the space of a few hours. From dawn to late afternoon. There is nothing like it.

Cons: It has Wi-Fi. Which means that despite intentionally shutting off your data roaming because youre on holiday, you find that you cant resist checking back with the real world.

Thats how I find out that Claudio Ranieri is the new Leicester City manager on 13 July 2015.

Nice one, I think to myself. He belongs in England, hes happiest working there. But Leicester isnt London. What the heck is he doing there?

The answer would come ten months later, of course. Hes there to win the league.

I WhatsApp him, as I would do for most of the season: Claudio, try not to screw up Leicester too much.

When I next log on to the Wi-Fi, I have his answer: Dont you worry about that.