Should Roma Sack Claudio Ranieri? (Part 1)
Claudio Ranieri has been in football management for the past 23 years. His management career started off 1987 with Campania Puteolana. The coach has gone on to manage eleven teams after that. The tactician has earned himself the nickname ‘Tinker man’ for
his continued changes in tactics and his constant experimentation. Ranieri took over his beloved Roma last year after the club made a poor start last season. Luciano Spalleti left the club on mutual consent and the coach, who started his playing career with
Roma, was appointed. Under Ranieri, the team soon found their feet and finished a close second on the last day of the 2009/10 season.
The tinker man’s tinkering has finally come undone this season. As Roma has just earned just 2 points from 4 matches so far this season and the team has not faced a big opposition so far. For a team that had title ambitions at the start of the season, it
is certainly 10 points down.
The team is misfiring on all fronts. The defence is leaking goals with alarming regularity. Although last night’s defeat was harsh keeping the refereeing decisions in mind, Roma should have still made easy work of such weak opposition. With the squad that
AS Roma has at its disposal, it should certainly finish in the top four come the end of the season. But failure to launch a serious title challenge would be deemed a failure, Ranieri’s failure.
Ranieri is often called the most likeable loser. In 23 years of management, he has never won a major league, his only notable success being a UEFA Intertoto Cup and a UEFA Super cup with Valencia. It is still unlikely that he will win a league this season.
One can say 'third time gets lucky', but never heard of 24th time being lucky.
So is Ranieri really that bad a coach? For starters, he doesn’t have the winning mentality of Jose Mourinho or the control of Alex Ferguson. During his stint with Juventus, Ranieri would often take off his attacking players with the team leading by a slender
1-0 score line. Juventus would go on to concede and had to settle for single points many a times. To his credit however, Ranieri has surprisingly changed his attitude with Roma, the coach always went for the maximum last season.
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