Claudio Ranieri

Claudio Ranieri, born on October 20, 1951 in Rome, is an Italian football manager and former player, currently manager of Juventus.

Playing career

Ranieri first signed as a professional football player with AS Roma, though in his two seasons with the club he only made six appearances; he also had a one-month loan spell with Siracusa. As a player, Ranieri played most of his career as a defender for Catanzaro (1974-1982), Catania (1982-1984) and Palermo (1984-1986). He was involved in four successful promotion campaigns; two with Catanzaro and one each with Catania and Palermo.

Managerial career

Campania, Cagliari

After coaching amateur side Vigor Lamezia, his first managerial position was at Campania Puteolana, a small team in Pozzuoli, where he took charge in 1987. But it was at Cagliari that he made his name, getting them promoted to Serie A from the third national division Serie C1 in successive seasons.

Napoli

He moved to coach at Napoli for two seasons. Despite finishing in fourth place in Serie A, he won no silverware. He did, however, introduce Gianfranco Zola to the first team to replace Diego Maradona.

Fiorentina

He joined Fiorentina in 1993, gaining promotion from Serie B in his first season. He subsequently had success in Serie A, winning the Coppa Italia and SuperCoppa Italiana in 1996.

Valencia - First spell

In 1997 Ranieri moved to Spain to take over the reins at Valencia CF. He was the coach from 1997 to 1999 and guided Valencia to the UEFA Champions League and the Copa del Rey in 1997. In his first spell Ranieri left a popular man, and has been credited for guiding Valencia onto subsequent successes in the Champions League and La Liga.

He was responsible for the development of several youth players at the club, among them Gaizka Mendieta, Miguel Angel Angulo, Javier Farinós and David Albelda. Ranieri also signed several players who would become highly successful at the Mestalla, among them goalkeeper Santiago Canizares and Argentinian forward Claudio López.

Ranieri's first spell at Valencia is popularly regarded as a precursor of what would later happen at Chelsea, since both clubs achieved success which was in part attributable to the input of Ranieri.

Atlético Madrid

Ranieri joined the club in 1999 but while manager at Atlético Madrid, the club went into administration. Subsequently the team struggled on the pitch. Nearing the brink of relegation Ranieri resigned before he could be sacked by the late Atletico chairman Jesus Gil, who was well known for sacking managers.

Chelsea

As Head Coach of Chelsea from 18 September 2000 to 31 May 2004, he had to work hard to overcome the language barrier. When he arrived at the London club he could speak only limited English; fortunately, the club had a few who could speak Italian and Spanish and could help translate for him on the training pitch. Ranieri's first season comprised of inconsistent results, with Chelsea reaching sixth place and a UEFA Cup spot.

Ranieri worked to rebuild Chelsea in the summer of 2001, essentially creating a brand new midfield by signing Frank Lampard from West Ham United, Emmanuel Petit and Boudewijn Zenden from FC Barcelona, and Jesper Grønkjær from Ajax Amsterdam, as well as William Gallas from Olympique Marseille, for over £30million. He was criticized however, for selling fan favourite Dennis Wise, and the fact that Chelsea's league performance did not improve much on the previous season, finishing 6th once again, but reaching the FA Cup final, though they lost 2-0 to Arsenal.

During the 2002-03 season and throughout his Chelsea days Ranieri was accused of over-rotating his squad, and picked up the nickname of the Tinkerer from the British media. Chelsea finished the season on a high, qualifying for the Champions League after beating Liverpool 2-1 on the last day of the season. Ranieri's achievement, coming after a close season where the club were in a difficult financial situation and the only arrival was Enrique de Lucas from Espanyol on a free, was greatly appreciated by fans and the media alike. In addition, Ranieri succeeded in getting the best out of players like Samuele Dalla Bona and Mario Stanic and nurtured emerging talents in John Terry, Robert Huth, and Carlton Cole.

When Chelsea were taken over by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003, Ranieri was given a large transfer fund but also found his job under threat. Days after the takeover Abramovich was spotted meeting with England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, although the club denied Eriksson would be taking over at the time, these rumours would haunt Ranieri's season. Ranieri spent £120 million on players in the summer of 2003. These signings included Irish winger Damien Duff for a then club record £17million, English youngsters Wayne Bridge, Joe Cole, Scott Parker and Glen Johnson, Argentine pair Juan Sebastian 'Seba' Veron and Hernán Crespo, Frenchman Claude Makélélé and Romanian star Adrian Mutu, who would be sacked 14 months later for testing positive for cocaine.

The heavy investment brought the best league placing for the club in 49 years, finishing runners-up in the Premiership to the first side in over a century to go an entire league season unbeaten, (a position sufficient to automatically qualify Chelsea for the lucrative group phase of the Champions League) and reaching the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League. That season also saw Chelsea break some club records for the least number of goals conceded and highest number of points in a season.

Inconsistent results achieved during Ranieri's tenure did not satisfy many at the club, who expected instant success. Ranieri himself explained that it was difficult to mould so many new players into a team within a season and that he was 'satisfied' with his work for the season. He was criticised for his poor tactical substitutions during the semi-finals of the Champions League against AS Monaco, when the team lost 3-1 in the away leg and despite leading by two goals in the home leg eventually drew 2-2 and went out 5-3 on aggregate. Former English footballer and pundit David Platt used the example of Ranieri to illustrate his observation that "building a team that can win the title and actually steering this team to the title are two different matters entirely." Though some Chelsea fans admired Ranieri for battling on despite being doomed to be eventually sacked by the demanding owner, Roman Abramovich. It should also be noted in Ranieri's four seasons Chelsea gained more points than the ever previous season. Chelsea favourites under Mourinho like John Terry, Petr Cech, Arjen Robben William Gallas, Claude Makelele, Frank Lampard, and Eidur Gudjohnsen were also brought to Chelsea or nurtured by Ranieri.

On May 31 2004, after almost a year of speculation, he was finally relieved of his coaching duties at Chelsea, and his job went to José Mourinho, who had led F.C. Porto to successive European triumphs, picking up the UEFA Cup in 2003 and then the Champions League in 2004, beating Chelsea's conquerors in the semis, AS Monaco.

Ranieri published a book named Proud Man Walking in September 2004 chronicling his last year at Chelsea. All proceeds went to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Valencia again

On 8 June 2004, he returned for a second stint as coach of Valencia on a three-year contract.

Picking up the pieces after Rafael Benítez, the manager who had led Valencia to the UEFA Cup and La Liga double the previous season, resigned and then promptly joined Liverpool. Ranieri made a series of signings from Serie A, such as Marco Di Vaio, Stefano Fiore, Bernardo Corradi and Emiliano Moretti. After a bright start, in which the Mestalla outfit picked up 14 out of a possible 18 points and beat Porto to lift the European Super Cup, Valencia went into a slump from October, winning once in 7 games and getting knocked out of the Champions League, in no small part thanks to a 5-1 defeat to Inter in which midfielder Miguel Angulo was sent off for spitting. After a brief revival Valencia went another 6 games without a win from mid-January. Apart from his four Italian signings Ranieri was criticised for not playing Argentine playmaker Pablo Aimar and persistent changes to formations and tactics, something carried forward by him from his Chelsea days.

He was sacked on February 25 2005 after Valencia were knocked out of the UEFA Cup by Steaua Bucharest. Valencia were sixth in La Liga at the time of Ranieri's sacking.

Quique Sanchez Flores was announced by Valencia in June, 2005 to be Ranieri's long term successor. Prior to that Ranieri had picked up £3million from Valencia for the premature termination of his contract.

Parma

On 12 February 2007, one day after the 23rd Serie A matchday, Ranieri was announced as new Parma head coach following the sacking of Stefano Pioli. He lost his first game in charge against U.C. Sampdoria 1-0, but successively managed to make several impressive results to help Parma in the relegation battle, obtaining 17 points in 10 matches (to be compared to his predecessor's 15 points in 23 matches), including a 4-3 unexpected away win at Palermo which caused the rosanero to sack their coach Francesco Guidolin, also thanks to goals by Italian under-21 striker Giuseppe Rossi, on loan from Manchester United F.C.. The impressive results continued in the run up to the end of the season and Parma avoided relegation with a 3-1 win over Empoli F.C. on the last day to end up at 12th position in the Serie A. The team started to hit some impressive goal-scoring form as well, seen in the 4-1 thrashing of Messina in early May.

Due to helping Parma escape from relegation, Ranieri had been linked with several managing jobs such as ones at Fulham, Manchester City, and Palermo. On May 16, 2007, William Hill suspended betting on him becoming Manchester City manager following a flurry of betting activity. On May 31, Parma FC announced Ranieri would not be the club's head coach for the following season.

Juventus

On June 4, 2007, it was announced Ranieri would be taking over at Juventus, he signed a 3 year contract with the club. The deal began with effect on July 1 of 2007. His first season as manager of Juventus was fairly successful, he guided the team to 3rd place finish, just one season after they had been competing in the Serie B following the match-fixing scandal which rocked Italian football.

In August 2008 Raneiri engaged in a war of words with new Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho, who four years earlier had replaced him at Chelsea. He has also highlighted Inter as the strongest threat to Juventus in Serie A.

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Campania		1987	1988
Cagliari		1988	1991
Napoli		1991	1993
Fiorentina		1993	1997
Valencia		1997	1999
Atlético Madrid		1999	2000
Chelsea		September 18 2000	May 31 2004	199	107	46	46	53.76
Valencia		June 16 2004	February 25 2005	36	15	12	9	41.66
Parma		February 12 2007	May 31 2007	16	7	6	3	43.75
Juventus		July 1 2007		38	20	6	12	52.63

References

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