ESPN FC's Brian McBride reacts to Sir Alex Ferguson's comments that with investment Leicester could win the Premier League.
The Chelsea manager is no stranger to exaggeration. The target of his taunt, Claudio Ranieri, was 56 then. He is 64 now -- or, by Mourinho's maths, almost 80 -- and the "small cups" he had won go by the names of the Coppa Italia and Copa del Rey, trophies that Mourinho also counts among his own 22 pieces of silverware. The Portuguese rarely lets the facts get in the way of a good put-down, however, and taking aim at his predecessor at Stamford Bridge seemed the verbal equivalent of an open goal.
Ranieri appeared an amiable also-ran, living proof of the adage that nice guys don't finish first. Mourinho was more ruthless, more incisive and more successful. Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had upgraded by replacing the Italian with the Portuguese at Stamford Bridge in 2004. Theirs was a one-sided rivalry. Whatever the criteria, Mourinho was Ranieri's superior.
Not now. They reconvene at the King Power Stadium on Monday after a remarkable role reversal. Mourinho, by his own admission, is in the worst spell of his career; Ranieri arguably the best of his. Chelsea finished last season first and Leicester 14th. Now Ranieri's Leicester are top and Mourinho's Blues are 14th. Chelsea have 21 fewer points than at this stage of last season; Leicester have 22 more. Ranieri is the Premier League's great overachiever, Mourinho its great underachiever. The man who branded himself "the Tinkerman" rarely changes his team and has seven ever-presents. The tinkerer is Mourinho, forever axing Chelsea's untouchables in a quest for a winning formula. Ranieri is this season's Special One.
The top three positions in the table are occupied by Ranieri, Arsene Wenger and Manuel Pellegrini, three managers Mourinho has long mocked for their supposed lack of success. Mourinho's has been such a hubristic fall that it could have been scripted by the Greek gods. Ranieri's has been a remarkable rise since he was fired by Greece.
Greece's 2014 defeat to the Faroe Islands in European Championship qualifying represented a worse result than any Mourinho has endured in a traumatic campaign. Yet since then, Ranieri has lost a solitary game, to Arsenal, plus a penalty shootout, against Hull in the Capital One Cup. Mourinho has already suffered more defeats than he has in any previous league season. His team have been defeated eight times in 15 games. Ranieri, the man Mourinho said in 2010 was "considered a loser" at Chelsea, was dismissed by Abramovich after only seven defeats in his last 39 league matches.
Their differing fortunes are supported by contrasting approaches. Mourinho has a tendency to take unnecessary pot-shots at Ranieri. A smiling diplomat rarely responds in kind. The current Chelsea manager stated two months ago that Ranieri could not muster basic English phrases, but if Ranieri, unlike Mourinho, has never made his living as an interpreter, Leicester's startling start then raises questions of how much better they would do if the Italian's grasp of the language met the Portuguese's exacting standards. Ranieri generously said in August that the younger man was a "nice boy" which, coming from another, might have sounded patronising. From him, it appeared more heartfelt.
Mourinho picks fights and picks jobs where he has a chance to succeed. Ranieri has managed some of Europe's wealthiest and most illustrious clubs without winning the league. That is the case against him: that he is a nearly man, whereas Mourinho is a winner. Mourinho has eight league titles in four countries, Ranieri has nine top-four finishes in four major leagues.
Yet they are reasons why it is wrong to write Ranieri off. He may have coached Napoli, Fiorentina, Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Valencia (again), Parma, Juventus, Roma, Inter Milan and Monaco without securing a domestic championship, but he never had the strongest side in their respective divisions. Big clubs that Napoli, Fiorentina and Roma are, they only have seven Scudetti between them in their history; Ranieri has fared better than many of their managers. There have been failures -- Inter, Greece, his time at Atletico as they headed for administration and arguably his second stint at Valencia -- but he has emerged in credit more often than not.
He took Juventus to third and second-placed finishes when they were rebuilding after calciopoli and their relegation to Serie B. With Monaco, he finished as runners-up to a financial superpower, Paris Saint-Germain, in France and second behind Arsenal's Invincibles in England. It only ranked as underachievement in the fiscal sense: it was the first year of Abramovich's ownership, and while Chelsea spent heavily, Arsenal still possessed the outstanding starting XI. Chelsea finished sixth, sixth, fourth and second under Ranieri and without their last-day win over Liverpool in 2003, securing a Champions League spot, perhaps Abramovich would not have bought a cash-strapped club. It may be the most important result in their history.
Perhaps it was a pointed jibe at Mourinho, but Wenger argued that Ranieri laid the foundations for Chelsea's subsequent success before his 2004 sacking. He was criticised for spending what seemed an extortionate £11 million on an apparently undistinguished Frank Lampard; 648 games and 211 goals later, Chelsea's Champions League-winning captain has a case to be called the greatest player in their history. Stalwarts of Mourinho's first, and best, Chelsea team such as William Gallas, Claude Makelele and Damien Duff arrived under Ranieri, while the deals to bring in Petr Cech and Arjen Robben had been arranged. John Terry had only made six Premier League appearances before the Italian's appointment; by his dismissal, Terry was the cornerstone and captain-in-waiting.
In his first spell at Valencia, too, Ranieri proved a team builder. The sides Hector Cuper took to successive Champions League finals in 2000 and 2001 were assembled by his predecessor. In comparison, Mourinho allows others to do the groundwork. His specialist subject has been short-term success, aided by substantial budgets and personnel with a pedigree. His first season at a club has tended to be for fine-tuning; his second at Porto, Chelsea, Inter, Real Madrid and Chelsea again have all yielded a league title, twice as part of a Champions League winner.
It transformed him into a Galactico of a manager. Ranieri has spent much of the last two decades in the next bracket down, more likely to be chosen by top-six contenders than potential champions. Leicester seemed the lowliest job he had taken since he took over Fiorentina in Serie B in 1993. His failure in four games with Greece had damaged a reputation that is being restored with every result this season. This, so far, is the greatest example of him over-performing, just as Mourinho has never been as unsuccessful. It is an extraordinary outlier for both.
If the sense is that Mourinho underestimated Ranieri, so did many others. If the 64-year-old was liked more than he was respected, the opposite applied to the 52-year-old. Yet Ranieri's unexpected late-career renaissance means he is belatedly being afforded more recognition, while Mourinho's startling decline means his provocative comments cannot be excused as characteristics of an innate winner. Monday's reunion should come with a warning about gloating. Because, even if Mourinho does prevail, his side will still be 14 points behind Ranieri's Leicester.
0 comments:
Post a Comment