Remembering Claudio Ranieri's Time at Juventus

In the summer of 2006, Juventus’ world was torn apart. Found guilty in the Calciopoli scandal, they were relegated to Serie B with an 18-point penalty and stripped of two league titles.

Coach Fabio Capello and the entire board of directors departed, with a host of star players following suit. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira joined Inter Milan, Gianluca Zambrotta followed Lilian Thuram to Barcelona and Emerson and Fabio Cannavaro signed for Real Madrid.

A small band of heroes remained. Alessandro Del Piero, Gigi Buffon, Pavel Nedved, David Trezeguet and Mauro Camoranesi chose to stand and fight, with another Juve idol returning to lead them.

Didier Deschamps had been an important midfielder for the Bianconeri, and now as a coach he helped the club retain some of its identity after such dramatic upheaval. On appeal, the Old Lady’s points deduction was halved, and the talented squad won the second division title at a canter to secure an immediate return to the top flight.

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However, the French boss was ambitious and made his expectations for the following campaign abundantly clear to his superiors. Managing director Jean-Claude Blanc admitted to La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t ESPN FC) that there were differences between the club and a coach who wanted more money to spend in the transfer market.

Clearly unhappy with their response, Deschamps resigned hours after clinching the Serie B title, leaving Juventus once again in a difficult position. Desperate to rebuild their shattered reputation with fans, sponsors and the media, the next appointment was an important one as the Bianconeri returned to the spotlight.

Enter Claudio Ranieri. Well-liked and widely respected, he ticked so many boxes for the Turin giants that handing him the reins was a no-brainer, as he would undoubtedly help the club achieve their off-field goals.

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He had worked abroad with big clubs like Valencia and Chelsea while constantly admitting he remained a fan of his hometown club AS Roma. The Giallorossi were bitter rivals of Juventus and blamed them for many of their biggest losses, making Ranieri above suspicion and beyond reproach.

Just as he is today, the coach is rightly viewed as a gentleman, which is just what the Old Lady needed. Together they built a hardworking squad who could support the likes of Del Piero and Trezeguet, signing cheap and available players who would give their all and follow Ranieri’s instructions.

In his own words per Ed Vulliamy of the Guardian, his aim was “to bring Juventus and its name back among the greats, where they belong, after all the chaos. To be here is more than just a new adventure. It's a summit of sorts. To be part of Juventus is to be part of history."

With no European football and a burning desire to impress, they did just that, losing just twice in their opening 23 matches, quickly moving into the top three and staying there when the campaign drew to a close.

Del Piero’s tally of 21 goals saw him named Serie A’s leading goalscorer for the first and only time in his career, with his vast array of strikes shown in the video above. Exceeding expectations by some distance, the club spent the summer of 2008 preparing for a return to Champions League action.

They invested heavily in the transfer market, but it was at that moment when Ranieri’s caution supposedly prevented him from taking the club forward. Speaking in an interview with Tuttosport (link in Italian), Blanc admitted the club agreed a deal with Liverpool for Xabi Alonso and with Sevilla for Christian Poulsen.

Needing one player to strengthen the midfield, the director insisted the decision was Ranieri’s to make and that he eventually asked for the Denmark international, much to the dismay of the overlooked player.

"One thing I can say is that I personally appreciated the honesty of the club executives," Alonso told The Telegraph. "They told me their tactics on the pitch were different, and that is why they chose Poulsen and not me. These are things that happen in football, and it's fine. I could have gone, but I didn't because, in the end, they chose someone else.”

On the pitch, however, things were not fine for Juventus once the 2008/09 campaign began. It started well enough, and for a while it seemed as though the Bianconeri were legitimate title contenders, while they topped their Champions League group after two memorable wins over Real Madrid.

Their performance at the Bernabeu was undoubtedly the high point of Ranieri’s tenure, emerging 2-0 victors with both goals from Del Piero, who received a standing ovation from the crowd when he was substituted late in the game.

But they were subsequently eliminated from Europe by Chelsea, and after a 4-1 win over Roma, their domestic form collapsed too. A sequence of six draws and a loss through April and May ended their title aspirations, with Ciro Ferrara replacing Ranieri for the last two games of the season.

"We have taken this decision as a last resort when the team is not playing well,” Blanc said in a statement to the press, per BBC Sport. "We are convinced that this will deliver a clear message to the players: These final two games are fundamental and need to be played to the very best of their ability. Everybody has got to take responsibility."

They secured six points in those two games, but the sacking of Ranieri did not end the issues which affected the team. A plethora of players were bought and sold, while Ferrara, Alberto Zaccheroni and Luigi Delneri all failed to match the Rome native’s top-three finishes over the next two seasons.

Indeed, it was only after the arrival of new president Andrea Agnelli, a complete overhaul of the board of directors and the appointment of Antonio Conte as coach that Juventus finally began to win again.

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Ranieri obviously made mistakes, but he insists the situation was not quite the way Blanc portrayed it. Speaking in an interview with the Corriere dello Sport (h/t Football Italia), he explained that the problem was deeper than simply a choice about which midfielder to sign:

"

We no longer agreed on transfer strategy. I was told that we’d agree on and buy players between the three of us: me, director of sport Alessio Secco and general manager Jean-Claude Blanc.

The moment came when a choice was made that I didn’t agree with, but they told me that the two of them had decided. So I said fine, then I’ll go instead. They fired me two games before the end of the season, but the matter was done and dusted by that point.

Who was the player? I can say it now, it was Cannavaro. He was a great player, but it didn’t seem right that six stars went down to Serie B and took Juventus back into the top flight. Meanwhile he went off to Real Madrid and won a title only to just come back again?

"

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It was an ugly split, one which did little to improve the situation, and it was worsened by having men like Secco and Blanc working in roles they were ill-equipped to fill. The appointment of Ranieri was arguably their best decision, and while sacking the coach was not even close to being their biggest mistake, it was still a huge error of judgement.

“We did very well in my view, with more highs than lows,” Ranieri told La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia) earlier this year. He is absolutely right; he was the perfect man in just the right place when the Old Lady needed a steady and reliable hand.

History has not been kind to him, but Juventus fans would do well to hold him in high regard for all he did for the club.