MADRID, 21 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Italian coach Claudio Ranieri will not continue coaching Cagliari next season, with whom he sealed his stay in Serie A last Sunday and whom he will coach for the last time on Thursday against Fiorentina, and will retire from the bench at the age of 72 , a “hard and painful” decision but one that he believes is “the right one.”
“My path began in 1988, we had three wonderful years with two promotions and one salvation; then I left and became great. Now it seems good to leave, after a promotion, perhaps unexpected when I arrived in January. I said it at the last second of the last game, because I had in mind Pavoletti’s goal last year in Bari in the 94th minute. Leaving now is the right thing to do. I signed a three-year contract, but it’s okay to leave now even if it’s reluctant. It was a tough decision. painful, but I think it’s right,” he declared in a video on Cagliari’s official media.
Furthermore, the Roman coach hopes to have been “a worthy representative of Cagliari and all of Sardinia.” “I prefer to leave like this and not next year when things might not go well. You know how afraid I was to return to Cagliari so as not to tarnish the first three years that had filled my heart. Things were not going well and I did not want to come , many insisted, but I read the words of Gigi Riva, who said that Claudio was one of us So I chose to take the risk,” he revealed.
“Now the time has come to leave us. I hope to be remembered as a positive person who asked the people of Cagliari for help, without them we would not have achieved it. The public was the extra man in difficult moments, the fans always believed in my words and never abandoned us, blowing after us and never grumbling,” he continued.
Ranieri already managed Cagliari between 1988 and 1991, years in which the club went from the third category of Italian football to Serie A. In January 2023 he returned to the Sardinian entity, with the fourteenth team in the Second Division, and He got into the promotion promotion, in which he managed to rise again to the ‘rossoblu’.
The Italian began his career on the bench at Vigor Lamezia and later played for Puteolana, Cagliari -on two occasions-, Naples, Fiorentina, Valencia -on two occasions-, Atlético de Madrid, Chelsea, Parma, Juventus, Roma – twice -, Inter Milan, Monaco, Leicester City, Nantes, Fulham, Sampdoria and Watford.
The greatest success of his career was achieved with Leicester in 2016, which he led to conquer the Premier League. In addition, he won a Copa del Rey (1999) in his first stage at Valencia and a European Super Cup (2004) in his second, as well as a Cup and an Italian Super Cup with Fiorentina.