From The Sunday Times
November 9, 2008
Ranieri revival at Juventus
Chelsea’s former manager is transforming Juventus from underdogs to top dogs
Celebration time: Alessandro Del Piero has hit a rich vein of form this season to help reinvigorate Juventus and the career of former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri
The team-talk had been rigorous. Claudio Ranieri’s instructions to his back four, a makeshift quartet, were especially detailed. He stressed the importance of keeping their line, holding it high up the field, whatever the temptation to retreat against opponents likely to attack in numbers. He reminded his players what they had achieved a fortnight earlier.
Turning to some of the younger ones, switching on his twinkling smile, Ranieri then made a little joke, designed to relax them as the noise in the arena swelled and thousands of Spaniards sang 'F*** Off Juve’ in accomplished Italian.
“
You know this place from your PlayStations,” Ranieri told the junior men. “
Now, you are really here, playing in the real Bernabeu. Just carry on doing what we have been doing. Remember: We are getting better and better with each game. That’s the most important thing.”
There have been several plucky performances in the Champions League this season. Like the Romanian debutants to the competition, FC Cluj, who have won in Rome and held Chelsea; or the Cypriots, Anorthosis Famagusta, who boast a single defeat from four contests.
However, the one that had 70,000 on their feet applauding an opponent – the emblematic Juve captain, Alessandro Del Piero – last Wednesday night perhaps counts as the most fetching yet. Whatever the state of the current Real Madrid, beating them 2-0 in the Spanish capital is some scalp. Scoring four times against them in 180 minutes ranks as unusual, and when you remember the victorious team in this case were not even in their own country’s first division 18 months ago, and out of Europe altogether for the past two years, Juventus carry a genuine underdog pedigree.
Ranieri, the Juve head coach, likes it that way, even if the sooner he can recall senior internationals like Gianluigi Buffon and David Trezeguet back from injury the more comfortable he will feel taking on the twin challenges of Serie A and a Champions League where Juventus have already secured their place in the knockout stages.
It hardly needs repeating that no major European club have lately suffered as steep a fall as Juve. Demoted to Serie B for the part played by their directors, led by Luciano Moggi, in the manipulation of referees in the period including their successive Italian titles of 2005 and 2006; banned from Uefa tournaments for 24 months, they needed to mount a quick comeback and a change of image. Thanks largely to Ranieri, they are on the way to both, no longer the sinister institution of “Lucky Luciano” but the one of Plucky Claudio.
Ranieri has made his own comeback, too. Dismissed by Chelsea in 2004 to usher in Jose Mourinho – Special One for Tinkerman – Ranieri returned to Valencia, where he had been popular in the late 1990s. It would be a short-lived and ill-fated reunion. So Ranieri took time out and studied. He turned up to clubs like Barcelona just to watch much younger managers do their drills.
“
The one thing you must never do in this job is think you know it all. The game is always moving on,” he said. In the spring of 2006, he was offered an apparently doomed vessel to rescue in the form of Parma, sinking towards the bottom of Serie A. With a remarkable turnaround, he saved them.
Juventus, meanwhile, had bounced back up into the top flight in Italy and, losing their coach Didier Deschamps, turned to Ranieri to consolidate. In their first nine months back among the elite, he guided them above Milan, to third in Serie A.
To some he still had the look of a caretaker. But Ranieri stayed on and oversaw a series of solid but frankly unglamorous signings: Olof Mellberg, on a free from Aston Villa; Momo Sissoko, no more than a substitute at Liverpool; Fleming Poulsen, the Danish fetcher-and-carrier. In those footballers who had remained in Turin through the demotion crisis, he discovered a Peter Pan spirit.
Del Piero is 34 today, and his two goals in the win over Madrid, both of them brilliant, were merely a pair in a purple patch of form. At the Bernabeu, Pavel Nedved, 36, charged up and down the left flank just as if he was the same blond firefly of Euro 96.
“
Three weeks ago, everything was going badly,” Ranieri reminded me. “
There was talk of a crisis. But you know how it works in football. Suddenly we started playing well, winning again and discovering the Juventus that everybody knows.” Which is? Doughty warriors. “
You know we Italian coaches admire players who know how to play tactically our way. People say we’re just about catenaccio and that’s not true. But we do work hard on the defensive aspect and I want this Juventus team to be hard to beat. We are, I think.
“
Against Real Madrid we played the Italian way, tactical football where you don’t let the opposition play their game, make them anxious, looking for the counter-attack and defending a long way from the goal.”
Ranieri spent the entire evening at the Bernabeu off his seat, directing his short, sharp hand gestures at players who maintained their shape, their high line throughout.
“
He gave us the keys for the victory,” said Alex Manninger, excellent in goal in the absence of Buffon. “
It was one of those games where you feel especially satisfied because the plan worked out perfectly.”
“
It was a tiring night,” added Mellberg, “
but we went out there very well organised. The manager is very hard-working in that sense. We do a lot of work on our organisation, look at a lot of videos. He’s a winner. I’ve known that since I played in La Liga with Santander and he was with Atletico Madrid and Valencia. He did very well at Chelsea too.”
Ranieri did do well at Chelsea, a fact sometimes blurred by the recall of his epitaph match – a muddled European Cup semi-final defeat by Monaco; by his nickname, The Tinkerman; by the impression given by his imperfect English; by the successes of the man who followed him, and by Mourinho’s reflex tendency to emphasise how much better he is than whoever has gone before or after. Mourinho is still at it. No sooner had he arrived in Serie A, to take over Internazionale, than he was reminding Ranieri about their relative scores in London.
“
He’s been working for long time and won one or two Cups,” said Mourinho. “
How old is he anyway? Seventy?” So, on his 57th birthday last month, Ranieri announced with a grin he felt great on turning 71.
Juventus play Inter, the champions, the weekend after next. Two places and two points separated the clubs, third and fifth in the table, going into yesterday.
“
The league is very close at the moment, a number of teams up there,” said Ranieri. “
That’s good for Italian football. In the last five or six years, there’s been one team that streaks ahead. I’m not sure that will happen this time and that makes it more interesting for everybody. We first want to finish higher than we did last season, which was third. But we have a lot of younger players now, so we’ll have to see.”
And what of Mourinho, the manager of an Inter team who, conspicuously, are not streaking away with the league? “
He’s doing well,” smiled Ranieri. “I
t’s normal that at certain moments, like now, as a new coach he has to get to know his team.
“
We have to recognise that Inter and Milan will be leading the fight for the title. We have a chance, of course. We just need to keep rising.”
The feud goes on
Claudio Ranieri and Jose Mourinho have been aiming barbs at each other since 2004, when the Portuguese took over from the Italian at Chelsea
July 2004 Mourinho arrives at Stamford Bridge after winning the European Cup with Porto and says: '
If anyone is Mr Ranieri’s friend or has his number, you should call him and explain to him that for a team to win the European Cup it has to beat many teams from many countries’
Oct 2004 Ranieri bites back: '
My friends say this new Chelsea are hard to watch’
July 2008 Mourinho joins Inter. Rivals Juventus have Ranieri in charge. Mourinho announces he has been studying the language five hours a day. '
Before me,’ he adds, '
Chelsea had a manager who after five years could barely say, “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” in English’
Sept 2008 '
He’s been working for a long time and won one or two cups,’ says Mourinho of Ranieri. 'How old is he anyway? Seventy?’
Oct 2008 Ranieri turns 57 and tells journalists: '
Today you should congratulate me on my 71st birthday’
nice and honest article
