Claudio Ranieri
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Claudio Ranieri (born October 20, 1951 in Rome) is a former Italian football player and football manager.
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Playing career
As a player, Ranieri played as a defender for Roma (1972-74, 6 games, 0 goals), Catanzaro (1974-1982, 225 games, 8 goals), Catania (1982-1984, 92 games, 1 goal) and Palermo (1984-1986, 40 games, 0 goals).
Managerial career
Campania, Cagliari
After coaching amateur side Vigor Lamezia, his first managerial position was at Campania, 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
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 since been credited for guiding Valencia onto subsequent successes in the Champions League and La Liga.
Atlético Madrid
Ranieri joined the club in 1999 but while manager at Atlético Madrid, the club went into administration. Nearing the brink of relegation Ranieri resigned before he could be sacked by the late Atletico chairman Jesus Gil, who was notorious for sacking managers.
Chelsea
As manager of Chelsea from September 2000 to 31 May 2004, he worked hard to overcome the language barrier. When he arrived at the London club he could barely speak English; fortunately, the club had few English players at the time, and many players who could speak Italian and as a result they could translate for him. Ranieri's first season comprised of inconsistent results, with Chelsea scraping into sixth place and an UEFA Cup spot.
Ranieri worked hard to rebuild the Chelsea squad in the summer of 2001, signing Frank Lampard, Emmanuel Petit, William Gallas, and Boudewijn Zenden for over £30million. Chelsea's league performance however did not improve much on the previous season, finishing 6th once again.
During the 2002-2003 season Ranieri was accused of over-rotating his squad, and picked up the nickname of the Tinkerman from the British media. Nevertheless Chelsea finished the season on a high, qualifying for the Champions League after beating Liverpool 2-1 on the last day of the season.
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 Goran 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 Hernan Crespo, veteran Frenchman Claude Makélélé and controversial 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 to go an entire league season unbeaten in over a century (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. 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. But it was not enough to satisfy many at the club, who expected actual success. His critics pointed to the manner in which Chelsea had gone out of the semi-finals of the Champions League, where some bizarre substitutions appeared to have cost Chelsea the game as they lost 3-1 to Monaco and eventually went out 5-3 on aggregate.
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 the man of the moment, a certain José Mourinho, who had led unfashionable Porto of the Portuguese Superliga to successive European triumphs, picking up the UEFA Cup in 2003 and then its more glamorous cousin the Champions League in 2004, ironically beating Chelsea's conquerors in the semis, 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
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 Benitez, 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, spending the cash on Marco Di Vaio, Stefano Fiore, Bernardo Corradi and Emiliano Moretti. These four signings never really worked, 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 humiliating 5-1 drubbing by 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 Argentinean 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 at the time of Ranieri's sacking.
Quique 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. Template:Start box Template:Succession box Template:End box