“The fans must stay close to everyone, Cagliari must be safeguarded. The colors must be preserved as a relic. Beyond the coaches or players who will come. We too have signed players who have performed more and others who have performed less. I leave a team and a club that has made mistakes but has learned from them and now wants to grow. I asked the fans to always stay close to this team.” It is one of the most important passages of the latest press conference Claudio Ranieri as coach of Cagliariwhich arrived after Unipol Domus’ controversial 2-3 draw against Florentine. Words as heavy as boulders, those pronounced by the coach from Testaccio, almost a warning towards the Cagliari area for a future that is born today, Friday 24 May 2024.
Claudius the Repairman
There are many fears in the environment after Ranieri’s farewell, more than legitimate. The most significant merit of the work of the now former rossoblù coach, beyond the results, was that of uniting the various parties involved: team, club, fans and even the press. Only Claudio Ranieri could have been forgiven for some unconvincing choices and some disappointing results: so it was, even the rossoblù president himself admitted it Tommaso Giulini after reaching safety in Reggio Emilia. “How many times have I had doubts about Ranieri this season? I’ve always thought that only he could save this team, but taking over from him… I hope he doesn’t stop for this reason too, because I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the person who had to take over from him. Of course, probably with another coach in the darkest moments there would have been a thought about a change….”, the patron said in response to our question. A shared thought, given that Ranieri brought home all the missions assigned to him: incredible promotion in A league, with an epic season finale (in the ancient and authentic sense of the word) with the goal of Pavoletti under the flood of Bari and salvation, equally complicated, achieved together with a group that was perhaps not technically exceptional but was able to come together at the right time. As happened in 1990-91, when in the second half of the season Cagliari showed everyone a big heart and a strong internal unity, distinctive traits of Ranieri’s thinking. This aspect above all will have to be taken care of starting today, especially after the banner and the whistles reserved by the Curva Nord for Giulini at the time of the delivery of a Cagliari-branded trophy to Sir Claudio. The coach mediated for a long time with the warmest part of the rossoblù fans, who not surprisingly in recent days paid him a greeting and homage worthy of Caesar. To use a metaphor with Roman history, he could be defined as “Claudio the Repairer”, but in the noblest sense of the term: he who was able to put together the pieces of a depressed square on the brink of the abyss, bringing back enthusiasm and desire to support the red and blue colors.
Enthusiasm
For this reason too, Claudio Ranieri will forever have another merit: having brought Cagliari and its fans back, after so many years, to being happy and proud of the path they have taken. With him it was possible to relive the dimension of celebration, of sharing a goal achieved with difficulty, the value of sacrifice and work. The rossoblù fans totally entrusted themselves to him to return to hope, exactly as happened in the summer of 1988 when the intuition of Carmine Longo And Tonino Orrù they first brought him in Sardinia. Today, as then, Ranieri has focused on practicality and the desire for redemption of a team with an important coat of arms but in a complicated historical phase. The celebration in Bari was added to that of Reggio Emilia, with the Roman coach carried in triumph by his players as if to underline that “the credit goes to this Lord”. Yes, Lord with a capital S and let no one accuse us of blasphemy. The kind words for his colleagues, the cuddles for his boys, the constant thanks to a fan base called to “blow behind” to help him complete his mission. A man from another era, for many reasons. A speaker who was anything but talkative, on the contrary, but always with the right words available when he wanted to launch his messages. Or ready to use “coachesese”, that is, that now codified language of stock phrases and banal answers often the only defense weapon of his colleagues: Ranieri used it only when he did not want or was able to give the “sincere” answers that perhaps journalists and fans expected. In this year and a half his use of metaphors to better explain complex concepts has enriched the pre- and post-match press conferences with anecdotes. Above all, the use of the term “libecciate“, a concept reiterated until the end. The Gascon Ranieri when the moment allowed it, the serious Ranieri if the situation was anything but easy: we have seen him in all his versions, gentleman and professional until the end even when there were only three of us in the press conference, him together to two journalists. Another coach (especially among those who passed recently…) could have legitimately denied himself, but instead he did not change the program out of respect for the journalists and the thousands of fans ready to follow the conference on YouTube. And even when the first criticisms of his choices, the negative results and the general performance of his Cagliari team mounted on social media, Ranieri always kept going: “You can see the horses at the finish line”, he repeated on several occasions. And, duly, he was right. As always.
What does he leave
What will become of Cagliari now, without the broad shoulders of Claudio Ranieri to act as a shield for the whole environment? The legacy of the Roman coach will be very heavy for anyone who replaces him, regardless of name, experience and CV. In 1991 Massimo Giacomini lasted only six days on the rossoblù bench, undermined by the comparison with the man who in three years achieved two promotions from C to A, complete with the Serie C Italian Cup attached. It is no coincidence that a coach arrived to replace Giacomini “with the attributes” like Carletto Mazzone, another master of pragmatism and intensity. Thirty-three years have passed since then and even in this circumstance, after Ranieri’s farewell – this time definitive – making the wrong choice would be a big problem for the Cagliari area. Because focusing on the wrong profile would mean damaging the good things that Sir Claudio has reconstructed, starting from the mood and the desire to fill the Unipol Domus. The practically guaranteed sold-out at every home match – with the race for season tickets in the summer of 2023 – and the power of a stadium once again a weapon in its favor (and not a further obstacle, as happened before the Ranieri-bis) were one of the secrets of the rossoblù’s rise from the swamps of Serie B to salvation. Not wasting this heritage will be one of the first challenges of the new season for Tommaso Giulini and his managers, called to make the most of the eighteen months with Ranieri on the bench. To ensure that what has been sown by “Ranieri the Repairman” can truly bear fruit at Cagliari, to plan and realize a future capable of giving satisfaction to all the rossoblù fans.
Francesco Aresu
