King Power: Leicester City’s Remarkable Season

Oh Jesus wept, no. Not the fucking Tinkerman.

III

… LONG LIVE THE KING! (#u2b9373ba-f4fd-5f24-a528-77229e618c6f)

When raised up to the throne by head of steam,

First test for a new king is e’er the same,

Be he monarch or coach in the beautiful game:

Stick glue-like to what is? Or change regime?

Such was the quandary for Claudio Ranieri when he filled the Pearson void. A Roman, soft-spoken, antidote to poison of Mourinho, whose raving paranoia did at Chelsea once replace his gentle tone.

What was he to do, this incoming boss? Replace incumbent backroom staff with loyal lieutenants of his own? Clear out existing players whose obeisance lay in doubt, hiring mercenaries to his taste from far and wide? Or shun revolution’s lure in stability’s name, and wait a while to see what need be done?

’Tis by and large the neophyte ruler’s way to erase all that before him was, the easier to stamp his image ’pon blank page. And not just in football, come to that. In each and every field ’tis much the same.

Now, take the eighthwit George Walker (President) Bush, chief warlord of the States for eight troubled years. When he did from power remove Saddam Hussein, that Mesopotamian tyrant of bushy ’tache, he and those who yanked Dubya’s strings this way and that – Cheney, Rumsfeld, other gangsters of that ilk – did act as arrogant men are fain to do.

They cast the Ba’athists from their crucial task managing that wretch’d strife-torn land, and thus pernicious vacuum did create. Nature abhorring such, it soon was filled, with civil war between Sunni and Shia (who did not serenade the other with love, as near namesakes Sonny and Cher did of yore), and also emboldening that harsh neighbour Iran, until turmoil over the whole region ran amok.

Such monstrous seeds were sown by folly of Bush – aye, and of his grinning, pliant bondsman Tony Blair – that we see a hideous harvest ripening still. All for want of retaining a regime, to stabilise the post-invasion scene.

Ranieri was more sagacious, as we’ll see, and perchance therein lay seeds of his success. But before we come to that and other things, a word or two about the cruel greetings that his appointment as Leicester City coach drew forth.

Yon Lineker, of whom we spoke above, did once again give vent to carping chirp, on Twitter where angry birds do flock. ‘Claudio Ranieri is clearly experienced,’ he piously opined, ‘but this is an uninspired choice.’ Again his grave mistake I can’t condemn, or pretend that I thought otherwise on the day, which was to be exact 13 July. For the hiring did seem as ill-omened as men believe the number thirteen doth portend.

No soothsayer alive was so preposterous skill’d to say the sooth that would later be revealed, as the 2015–16 season began to be unveiled.

For who that gazed into their crystal ball, and sighted Leicester proud atop the league, would not have dashed that ball onto stone floor, smashing it to myriad smithereens, chastising it for rascally orb of glass, which bore false witness to make its owner look an arse?

No one saw this coming, is my point. Not Lineker, not Claudio, not I.

Experienc’d he truly was, as Lineker said, though much of that lay in taking second place, and more in taking leave with pay-off cheque. Seven times already had he been discharged, and thrice resigned himself, and never in all those jobs a single title won.

At Chelsea in tranquil time before Mourinho came, to rain madness and silverware on Stamford Bridge in equal part, Ranieri three and a half years as coach had spent. His last season encapsulates the gist, with Chelsea runner-up in League and also Cup, in both the prize by but a whisker missed.

Hence ‘Nearly Man’ was one of his nicknames, with ‘Tinkerman’ the other sobriquet, for his penchant for e’er rotating his squad, and being unable his best eleven to say. Seldom twice on the bounce the same side did he pick, though by and by that habit would he break.

To his Chelsea stint a Croesus brought an end, the oligarch Abramovich by name, a Roman yet no Roman like Ranieri he, but came from the vast wastes of Russia’s icy steppe. Great treasure had he found in mysterious way, after into the abyss the Soviets collapsed. He spent a portion of his gold to buy the Blues, and more – much more – to make them glister once again.

And after more than thirty years of being bored into a coma (not me, of course, being dead already; ’tis but a figure of speech) by Chelsea fans yacking on and on about the 1970 FA Cup final – Peter Osgood this, Charlie Cooke that, David Webb’s shouldering the fucking winner in the Old Trafford replay against Don Revie’s Leeds – the revival came as some relief. Now at last they had some fresh vainglorious drivel to spout.

Yet Claudio, being kind and full of smile, was not Abramovich’s type of guy. The Russian hired José Mourinho from Porto in his stead, and soon enough Chelsea champions became. Back then in the year of our lord 2005, who would have believed this reversal a decade hence – which of them would this year get the sack, and which as coaching genius be wide acclaimed?

Yet even as Mourinho his stellar reputation built, winning the Champions League in nations twain, and many league titles and domestic cups besides, Ranieri collected little but the boot.

Which clubs (and country) sacked Ranieri. Aye, and when:

Napoli: 1993

Chelsea: 2004

Valencia: 2005

Juventus: 2009

Inter Milan: 2012

Monaco: 2014

Greece: 2014

That he was lately twice fired within a year tended ill for Leicester City, or so we thought. Especially when he ended his stay in Greece by putting the hell (and what hell!) into Hellenic.