The Italian had a dreadful time as manager of Greece and, even though his CV is reasonable, he has not lasted more than two years in a job since Chelsea

The last time Claudio Ranieri was in charge of a football team, his employer felt the need to come out to apologise and take “full responsibility” for “the most unfortunate choice of coach”. Ranieri’s Greece lost 1-0 at home to Faroe Islands, prompting the Hellenic Football Federation’s president, Giorgos Sarris, to sack the Italian and talk about how his decision to appoint him in the first place had “resulted in such a poor image of the national team being put before the fans”.

Poor is perhaps an understatement in the circumstances. Greece, who had for 13 years been a bastion of consistency, hard work and defensive solidity – first for nine years under Otto Rehhagel and then a further four under Fernando Santos – fell apart at an alarming rate.

Just before Ranieri, who was appointed as Leicester City’s manager on Monday, took over the Greek national team in July 2014, they had been a penalty shootout (against Costa Rica) away from reaching the World Cup quarter-finals. Four months later, they were last in their Euro 2016 qualifying group, having picked up one point from four games against Romania, Finland (two) and the Faroe Islands. The Greek FA had no other option than to sack Ranieri, four depressing months into his €1.6m, two-year contract.

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The list of what went wrong is long. Apart from the results, there was also a feeling in Greece that Ranieri failed to connect with the players – and with the people. The fact that he did not live in Greece probably did not help.

And then there was the tinkering. Eleven years after being given the nickname “The Tinkerman” for his constant chopping and changing while in charge of Chelsea, the thing that drove most Greeks to despair was the, well, constant chopping and changing.

Under Rehhagel and Santos, the Greeks knew what they were getting. Often 4-4-2, sometimes 4-3-3, on occasions 5-3-2, but always a tactically sound performance with the players aware of what they were doing. Under Ranieri they looked confused.

Apart from the demoralising defeat against the Faroes, there was particular consternation over the 4-2-4 formation chosen for the home defeat against Northern Ireland. The two holding midfielders (well, the only midfielders) were Giannis Maniatis and Panagiotis Tachtsidis and they are not even known for their defensive work.

So in November Ranieri was gone, having been paid €800,000 in a severance deal. He has not worked since and the news on Monday that he had been given a three-year deal at Leicester to replace Nigel Pearson was greeted with no little mirth in Greece. One can only assume that the Greek FA, and in particular one Mr Sarris, was not on Ranieri’s list of references when Leicester came calling. The Leicester City owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, clearly decided that one blip was allowed on an otherwise fairly impressive CV.

Ranieri has had seven jobs since leaving Chelsea in 2004, when he was replaced by José Mourinho after four years in the role. It is easy to forget now but the Italian took Chelsea to the last four of the Champions League in his last season, with the chaotic 5-3 aggregate defeat to Monaco one of the reasons he was sacked by Roman Abramovich.

After Chelsea he managed Valencia, Parma, Juventus, Roma, Internazionale and Monaco before landing the Greece job. His return to Valencia, where he had been the manager between 1997-99, was a failure and he did not even last a full season, signing four Italians and being criticised for not playing Pablo Aimar.

His stint at Parma, on the other hand, was a huge success and he kept them up against all odds in 2007. He then joined Juventus just as they returned from their spell in Serie B following the match-fixing scandal. He took Juve to third in his first campaign, mainly thanks to getting the most out of Alessandro Del Piero, who turned 33 during that season.

However, his second season at Juventus was a huge disappointment, with the manager using a very defensive 4-4-2 for large spells of the season. They again finished third in the league but were eliminated by Chelsea in the Champions League and Ranieri’s signings were deemed a failure with the fans feeling that players such as Jorge Andrade, Amauri, Tiago and, above all, Christian Poulsen were not worthy of wearing the Juve shirt.

Roma were a similar story: a hugely successful first season, when they came close to winning the league but in the end lost out to Mourinho’s Inter, followed by an implosion and Ranieri’s dismissal in his second term. He lasted only six months at Inter despite a promising start and was sacked, somewhat harshly, by Monaco after two largely successful seasons.

All in all, Ranieri’s CV is not bad but two things stand out: first of all the fact that his most successful stints came at the start of this coaching career and, second, that he has failed to hold a job for more than two seasons since leaving Stamford Bridge 11 years ago. This is what makes the Leicester decision so baffling.

In some ways, it seems as if the Leicester owners went looking for the anti-Nigel Pearson. Ranieri is not going to call a journalist an ostrich. He is not going to throttle a player during a match. He is not going to tell a supporter to “fuck off and die”, no matter how bad the abuse gets.

Ranieri is generally considered to be one of the nicest men in football and his long-running feud with Mourinho is a case in point. In August 2008, they became involved in a war of words. One of them came out with his dignity intact, the other didn’t. It started with Ranieri making a comment about “not being like Mourinho: I don’t have to win to be sure of the things I do”.

Mourinho did not hold back. “I am in Italy to work, not to be involved in a war of words,” he said, before being drawn into a war of words. “I want to do well with Inter, the best I possibly can for us and not forget about the work of the others. Ranieri? He is right in what he is saying: I am very demanding of myself and I need to win things to be secure with what I am doing. And because of this I have won a lot of things in my career. He, instead, has the mentality of someone who doesn’t have the need to win anything. He is nearly 70 years old and has won a Super Cup and another small cup. He’s too old to change his mentality.” Ranieri was 57 at the time.

He is 63 now and has suddenly been given the chance to take on Mourinho again. Few will back him to succeed but one thing is for sure: he will conduct himself in an honourable and humble way, as he always has done. If Leicester wanted someone nice, they’ve got him. If they wanted someone to keep them in the Premier League, then they may have gone for the wrong guy.