“Welcome home”. With those words, the official accounts of Roma announced Claudio Ranieri as the new coach of the club, which he will direct for the third time in his vast professional career and which he arrives to put out the “fire” that the “giallorosso” team is going through. that for the third time also this season I change helmsman.
“A tough nut to crack. That’s why they called me,” was the definition that the 73-year-old technician appealed to when confirming in dialogue with ANSA the news that had been circulating for a few hours in relation to the agreement reached after the negotiations he held. in London with the Friedkin group, owner of the Italian club.
“We are getting there,” added Ranieri, alluding to his return to the “Eternal City” to coach a Roma team that in his first stage between 2009 and 2011 he led to runners-up in Serie A in the first season and to which he returned in 2018. -19, without being able to repeat that experience that he will now seek to repeat to confirm that, as they say, “the third time is the charm.”
In his first time at Roma, Ranieri had replaced Luciano Spalletti, now coach of the “azzurra” team and who in 2022-23 won the “scudetto” as coach of Napoli, while in the second he replaced Eusebio in charge Di Francesco, current Venezia coach.
This time it will be to fill the vacancy left by the dismissal of Croatian Ivan Juric after the 3-2 defeat against Bologna at the Olympic Stadium, which put an end to a cycle that began in September after the departure of Daniele De Rossi and in which Roma added four wins (Udinese, Venezia, Torino and Dinamo kyiv, the latter in the Europa League) in 12 games, of which they lost five and tied three.
Clad in a gray sweater and with a smile on his face, Ranieri boarded the flight and was placed in seat number four, the position to which he hopes to lead the “giallorosso” team that today is twelfth in the championship with 13 points, four from the relegation zone, although five teams between them.
The idea is to achieve qualification for the next Champions League, which narrowly escaped the Roma coached by De Rossi in the last tournament, due to a Bologna team that would end up being the revelation of the competition, a thorn that will try to remove itself from the competition in this one. hand of a Ranieri who admits: “When Roma calls me, I can’t say no.”
When everyone considered him “retired”, after having saved Cagliari from relegation last season, Ranieri returned to the ring just six months later after having signed a contract until the end of the current season. Then, on June 30, 2025, he should become leader of the club that he will previously try to get out of the crisis it is going through.
Fans celebrate on the networks the return of a figure who has the back to weather the storm and who ended up surpassing in the election other candidates who were slow to say or directly rejected the invitation, among them Roberto Mancini, former coach of the “azzurra” barely disconnected from the Saudi Arabia team.
Another coach of a national team targeted was Vincenzo Montella, a former “giallorosso” scorer who was part of the team that celebrated the “scudetto” in 2001 and who today directs the Turkish national team, which is why he would have been forced to pay compensation to the federation of that country for the early termination of the relationship.
Rome ended up betting on an “old” acquaintance and the enormous experience of the coach who became Premier League champion with Leicester in 2016, after having won the Italian Cup and Super Cup with Fiorentina in 1996 and the Copa del Rey (1999). , the Intertoto Cup (1998) and the European Super Cup (2004) with Valencia.
Chosen as the best coach in the world in 2016 by FIFA, which gave him “The Best” award, Ranieri also managed to coach Napoli, Atlético Madrid, Chelsea, Parma, Juventus, Inter, Monaco, Nantes, Fulham, Sampdoria and Watford , among others.
Tomorrow he will conduct his first training session with a Rome squad that includes the Argentine world champions Paulo Dybala and Leandro Paredes, with his compatriot Matías Soulé, and with the German Mats Hummels and captained by Lorenzo Pellegrini, two of those sidelined by Juric.
“In Rome I was very happy until De Rossi left. We will see what happens now,” said Paredes, with little filming after Juric’s arrival, in statements made from the concentration of the “albiceleste” team, which is preparing to visit to Paraguay and to receive Peru on the last two dates of the year in World Cup qualifiers.
Ranieri will have to take advantage of the break for this double FIFA date to begin to put his mark on the team, which during the resumption will visit Napoli, leader of the championship, will clash with Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League, and then host Atalanta, duels that will put test one in need of a turn of the rudder to straighten the course and arrive at a safe port.
Almost as an omen, Rosella Sensi, former president of Roma, warned hours before hearing the news: “Ranieri is a great coach, a great professional and knows Rome and Roma well. He has great sensitivity and I hope he can understand quickly what is happening with the team and help us resolve it.
Ranieri’s arrival, according to Sensi, will help calm the waters after what he defined as “De Rossi’s traumatic departure” and will be well received by fans, disappointed by the team’s opaque campaign that lost last weekend to Bologna. and does not raise its head.
Despite everything, “the Roma fan never abandons the team, not even when he is disillusioned,” recalled Sensi, a member of a historic family in the club from which, he said, he hopes Argentine star Paulo Dybala does not leave in January. , as some anticipate.
“I hope he stays because, if he leaves, he would do himself harm,” he said about the “Joya”, who in the previous transfer market rejected a million-dollar offer to stay in Rome, which today is betting on resurrection with the arrival of Ranieri.