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The man before Mourinho: Claudio Ranieri’s four-year tenure at Chelsea

By on December 15, 2015

In the past thirty-five years, since John Neal’s sacking at Chelsea in the summer of 1985, Chelsea have had nineteen managers. Some have been more noteworthy than others, and not solely on the basis of their success. There was Glenn Hoddle and Ruud Gullit in the nineties; later Jose Mourinho, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti established a new era for the club from 2004 to 2011. Finally, Jose Mourinho has had the reigns of the club once again since the summer of 2013. Yet there is one manager, overshadowed by the success of his successor, Mourinho, and the failures of those before him, who has been Chelsea’s longest serving manager over these past thirty-five years: Claudio Ranieri.

Until Mourinho, Ranieri win rate was the best of any Chelsea manager since William Lewis, who served for less than a year between 1906 and 1907 in the old Second Division, and although he’s too polite and thoughtful to ever openly say it, the Italian set the foundation for the success of the modern day Chelsea. “Yeah,” said Ranieri, per The Guardian, “but for me it is finished there, my job finished one year before they won the title.”

Ranieri was the polar opposite of Mourinho in terms of his public figure: open with the media, not deceptive; aware of his personal limitations and that of his team; grounded and, dare it be said, very likable. He was the first and and only manager in the Abrahmovic era to have left the club on good terms with the fans, players and club hierarchy. In Ranieri’s final match in charge, a 1-0 defeat of Leeds United on the final day of the 2003/2004 season, he was already aware that Abrahmovic had been courting Mourinho and began to say his goodbyes. After the match, he rounded the pitch applauding Chelsea’s supporters. Spontaneously, Stamford Bridge rose to salute his work at the club, even Abrahmovic, high up in his directors’ box, and the players formed a guard of honor.

“That moment I’ll remember in my heart, in my mind for all my life,” Ranieri said in an interview win the BBC a few years back. “It was special because I didn’t win anything, but the crowd knows very well I built a good team.” Over the years, perhaps that appreciation has been lost in Abrahmovic’s pressure cooker at Chelsea.

Ranieri joined the club shortly after the turn of the century at the beginning of the 2000/2001 season. He worked hard to overcome the language barrier, which originally earned him flak and mockery from Chelsea supporters. Yet they had quieted down when Chelsea reached the FA Cup final that season and finished sixth in the league again. Ranieri set about building a new team, signing William Gallas, Joe Cole and Eidur Gudjohnsen in his first year at the club. He bought Frank Lampard, gave John Terry his debut and nurtured a younger generation at Chelsea. In an interview with The Guardian, he added: “I chose Petr Cech and had been to Eindhoven to take Arjen Robben and I suggested Didier Drogba, but that is it.” However, all his changes and constant squad rotation earned him the nickname: “The Tinkerman.”

Chelsea finished sixth once again in 2001/2002, but Ranieri lead his team into the Champions League with a fourth placed finish in the 2002/2003 season.

Then, however, Abrahmovic bought the club. “When he arrived did I think change was inevitable? Yes, immediately,” Ranieri said, via The Express. Abrahmovic replaced Trevor Birch, Chelsea’s then-chief executive, with former Manchester United man Peter Kenyon. “When Kenyon came, I was frozen,” Ranieri told the Guardian in 2008. “Kenyon was the new boss, and new bosses tend to want to bring in their own people and I was not one of his people.”

Ranieri knew he was doomed, a dead man walking. Originally, there was hurt and resentment but Ranieri quickly accepted his fate and got to work. The then-fifty-two-year-old had his fate put on hold after Abrahmovic’s overt courting of Sven-Goran Eriksson came up short, but knew he only had a season to prove himself.

That season, he lead Chelsea to their highest finish in forty-nine years, second in the Premier League, and took them to the Champions League semifinals. As his tenure at the club drew to a close with reports that Abrahmovic was chasing Mourinho, Ranieri’s hard work was honored everywhere he went. Arsenal’s North Bank gave him a round of applause after Chelsea defeated The Gunners in the Champions League and likewise at Stretford End following his last away match in charge of Chelsea, a scoreless draw. This takes us back to Ranieri’s send off in their 1-0 defeat of Leeds. In his wonderful autobiography, Proud Man Walking, Ranieri tells of a story at a cocktail party after the match. He was making small talk with Abrahmovic, who asked when the players returned from vacation.

“Whenever the new coach wants them,” came the reply. After the briefest of awkward pauses, the two men burst into laughter.

It was this outgoing sense of humor and honesty that Ranieri was remembered for at Chelsea. “Happy memories,” he says.

And then his fate was confirmed and Mourinho walked in the front door.

Homepage photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.