There has been much written in the past 6 months about Claudio Ranieri and Leicester City’s challenge for the Premier League title, the majority of which providing various shades of disbelief at their rise to the top of the table.
Even now, despite being 5 points clear and with only 4 games left, many still doubt they will succeed. The goodwill towards a team seemingly about to pull off the most unlikely of title victories is endless. One suspects that even some Spurs fans wouldn’t begrudge their closest rivals the title.
There have been better, more experienced and trophy-laden teams who have struggled to win leagues from similar seemingly unassailable positions; one only has to look at the current form of Barcelona in La Liga to show that pressure can produce a strange mix of performance and results.
That said, the relaxing attitude of Ranieri has so far presided over a recent run of games, save for Sunday’s 2-2 draw, where a succession of wins keeping clean sheets has propelled The Foxes clear of this rivals. It is great credit that the plaudits for the team have been awarded to almost all the squad members.
However, rewind to mid-July when Ranieri was appointed in place of Nigel Pearson. The English press were somewhat scathing of his appointment. Once again, the boring old adage of “young” English managers being overlooked for their foreign counterparts was trotted out verbatim, not dissimilar to the reaction that met the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino in place of Nigel Adkins by Southampton back in January 2013. How did that one turn out?
After the announcement of his appointment, it did not take long for Ranieri’s past as a “failed” Chelsea manager to be wheeled out, meanwhile us of “the tinkerman” phrase became fashionable again. Fast forward 9 months, and guess which team have used the fewest players this season and have had the same starting eleven the most times this season?
Credit must go to the Leicester City board. They realised that Pearson was not the man to take them forward, nor could the club afford to flirt with relegation again, particularly given the riches on offer from the latest television deal. Whilst there may have been other issues which contributed to Pearson’s sacking, the fear of another relegation battle was as prominent as any other.
Whilst Pearson deserves some credit for unearthing certain players and providing them with the chance to grace the Premier League, does anyone really think that Leicester would even be in the top half of the table if he had been retained?
When a new manager arrives at a club, they usually set about ripping up the previous manager’s approach and stamping their own authority on proceedings. For many, it is just as much about making sure everyone knows who is boss, as well as ensuring a team adopts their style of play and philosophy.
Similarly, many see the only way to do that as replacing the existing squad with their own men, perhaps in the misguided notion that this will provoke greater loyalty from “his” players then those signed by his predecessors. It takes a confident and grounded man to retain the majority of those who were loyal to his predecessor, whilst recognising the areas where the side needed improvement. That man is Ranieri.
In the first-half of the season, it was the attacking players who were receiving the plaudits. Whilst the obvious star performers were the much-lauded Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, the likes of N’Golo Kante and Shinji Okazaki also played crucial roles in The Foxes establishing their initial title charge.
The former expressing a level of athletic performance and passing range which has seen him become one of the most sought after midfielders in Europe, and the latter linking up well with Vardy and Mahrez to create the space that they have capitalised on.
As the season progressed, Ranieri realised that if the team were to maintain their amazing form and mount a challenge for the Premier League title, it was the defensive side of the game which would be most crucial in the second half of the season. As such, the performances of Kasper Schmeichel, Chris Morgan, Robert Huth and Danny Drinkwater have been pivotal to that drive to the title.
The latter has dovetailed well with Kante, to the extent that his performances have deservedly seen him earn his first England cap and made him a certainty to be part of Roy Hodgson’s squad for Euro 2016. His rise to prominence from his days as a Manchester United reserve and championship loanee has been a much overlooked ray of hope for many of those youngsters plying their trade at the bigger clubs, the majority of whom end up being released after spending all their childhood with their boyhood idols. It takes some mental strength to prevent such an experience ruining you, Drinkwater looks all the better for it.
For a team that was often poor in defence last season, Ranieri has tightened up Leicester considerably, imposing a base and solidity for which Italian managers are famed, whilst also losing none of their counter-attacking instinct and threat.
Whilst all the Leicester players are undoubtedly talented, it is clear that the attitude and approach of Ranieri has been the catalyst for their performances, provoking a sense of togetherness and unity. He has taken the pressure off his players, treating them like adults with a sense of trust and freedom that has reaped rewards.
Unlike many managers, he has recognised that the intensity of the Premier League is such that training every day can have drawbacks, particularly when the size of your squad is limited. The provision of regular rest days each week has drawn negative observations in some quarters however, in elite sport eliminating the risks of muscle fatigue is just as important as ensuring that players maintain the required fitness levels.
Whilst the devotion of his players has been a key catalyst to their success, Ranieri’s relationship with the press and his press conferences have been enjoyable to witness, particularly given the way he was treated on his appointment in July and in his previous stint at Chelsea. It says much of the man that there has been no sign of any grudge being held against the press, despite him having justifiable grounds.
When the questions have got somewhat probing or taxing, he has disarmed the interrogator with a smile and a witty one-liner that elicits a genuine laughter and enjoyment at his company. That approach is somewhat different to the approach of his predecessor; a man who ridiculously called a local journalist “an ostrich”, in a performance of utter disdain for the media that one has rarely seen at a press conference.
Even when the pressure was rising, or his team has been on the wrong end of decisions or embroiled in controversy, the Roman has maintained that relaxed air. At the same time, he has protected his players from the exposure and pressure, whilst also courting and securing their loyalty and devotion. That has been typified by his offers of buying them a pizza each if they kept a clean sheet, or the provision of days off to facilitate their intense, pressing style of play.
To the naked eye, it is clear that man-management is crucial to success at the top-level, and more successful managers such as Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti have been righty lauded for such skills. It is only right and proper that Ranieri gets such plaudits too for his man-management of the Leicester players this season.
One often forgets that football, whilst a serious business given all the financial pressures attached to it at the top level, is also sport. A past-time designed to be enjoyed and treasured, a chance for the average working person to forget their own worries for a mere 90 minutes every week, whilst at the same time providing moments of utter despair but also unrivalled happiness and elation that makes one lose ones sense of their own simple life and mere existence. It provides moments of drama and happiness that theatre, television and film can only dream of; many of the events that occur in sport would be dismissed as too far-fetched if transferred to screen or paper.
Ranieri and Leicester have provided fans of The Foxes with a once in a lifetime chance of something special, a feat they have never experienced or come close to experiencing before. The extraordinary story of a team who, 12 months ago, were staring relegation in the face, but now stand on the precipice of probably the greatest ever miracle in English football. The fact that the bookmakers had them at odds of 5,000-1 for the title at the start of the season shows how little chance many afforded them of survival, let alone making the top-half of the table.
If they pull this miracle off then it will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest title victories ever seen. The British love an underdog, as do we all, but there is little doubt that the seeds of this miracolo were sown in Rome.
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