As
Jose Mourinho’s position becomes increasingly threatened, Chelsea could
learn some lessons from former manager Claudio Ranieri. Claudio Ranieri was Chelsea
manager when Roman Abramovich took charge of the club in June 2003. It was
immediately said that the Italian didn’t have a future at Stamford Bridge.
Ranieri, as he told me shortly afterwards, had no illusions about his future.
“I said to Trevor Birch (Chelsea’s former
Chief Executive) ‘The new chairman means it’s time for me and you to go home,’ he
explained at the time. “That is the way. When change happens, the boss wants his own men.
There were always stories in the newspapers, but from the beginning, I said to
myself: work hard, always try your best and don’t follow the rumours. And
that’s exactly what I did.”
Ranieri was up against it from the start.
He’d joined a club where Ken Bates was the main man.
“I only have good words for Bates,” said
Ranieri. “He wrote in my contract that he could spend one week a year in my
house in Siena. He went to my house the first year, but not the second year and
he asked me for some money back! I couldn’t believe it.”
When
Chelsea’s new boss Peter Kenyon said publicly that he had to win the league,
the pressure was intense on the Italian.
“I had a good relationship with Peter Kenyon
but I didn’t like his first interview when he said Chelsea had to win the
league,” explained Ranieri to me in that interview. “I had never spoken about this with Roman. We only
had an understanding that I was building a team.”
He did that and when the Chelsea axe seemed
inevitable, people launched campaigns to keep him in England.
“It was an amazing period,” recalled Ranieri.
“At the beginning the people at Chelsea said: ‘Who is this coach?’ After one or
two years I started to speak a little more English and the people understood a
little better who was Claudio Ranieri. At the end I achieved a good
relationship with the Chelsea fans.”
But he was still fired and replaced by Jose
Mourinho. Chelsea had been waiting for Ranieri to make a mistake. It came in
the semi-final of the 2004 Champions League in Monaco. “It was a gamble for me,” admitted Ranieri.
“When I saw Monaco with ten men I was sure we could beat them. I decided to
change a defender for a striker. That is not in the Italian philosophy but I
wanted to win. We had two good chances to score but they scored twice and we
lost the match. It was my mistake: 1-1 was good for us but sometimes you try to
do something to change the game. You must also remember that we were 0-0 in
Rome against Lazio. I made the change and we won 4-0.”
That day,
Ranieri had heard that Abramovich
and Kenyon had met Jose Mourinho’s representatives in Monte Carlo.
Ranieri had taken Chelsea, a team which hadn’t won the league since 1955
to the
Champions League semi-final and his bosses were meeting his replacement
behind his
back.
“That made me more determined,” explained
Ranieri. “I knew they wanted Mourinho but the timing was very wrong. In that
moment I say to myself, ‘I’m going to try even more to win this game.’ So I go
too strong with the emotion. But this is my fault. It is my responsibility.”
Ranieri knew Mourinho from his Porto days.
“They were a very well organised team, a great block. He tried to win in the
right way and I think that he is trying to do the same with Chelsea. I spoke
with him in Nyon at a meeting with UEFA. He is a good man. He didn’t ask me
about Chelsea because every manager is different and they like to do things
their own way. Our football is different. What is good for me may not be good
for him.
“I had the opportunity to work with
Abramovich for one year and it was fantastic, but all the time I was 99%
certain that I would be leaving. I would have liked to continue but Roman
decided to change. I can only say thank you to him for the opportunity he gave
me.
“Of course I was lucky and I was building a
great team. Roman is a wealthy man. We had played Manchester City and I needed
to get back to London to fly to Rome so I asked Roman if I could go on his
plane. He told me that he was going direct to Moscow but spoke with his pilot.
Then he took me to Rome in his plane, a very big plane, before going to Moscow.
That was very good.”
Ranieri was betrayed by Chelsea, but he
retained his dignity. And he kept it long after our chat in Valencia a decade
ago.
He recalled: “I was disappointed. I did not win the
Premier League or Champions League last season, but something special happened in
England when we played our last away match - at Manchester United. Before the
game, when I was walking to the bench, and then again at the end the Manchester
fans applaud me with real emotion. This is amazing. How the English people link
with me is incredible. It was even more powerful in my last game at Chelsea.
Maybe Peter Kenyon will never have that feeling.” Chelsea and Mourinho were made for each
other, ruthless, successful, men who’ll do what they need to win, even if it means
putting noses out of joint, including each others. Abramovich never stays with
the same manager long, Mourinho never stays at the same club for long.
But there’s another way to manage, to do it with
dignity like Ranieri. Eleven years after he left Chelsea, the Italian is back
in the Premier League with Leicester City and doing very well. They have lost
only one of ten games and sit fifth – ten places higher than his old English
club.
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