Ranieri will most likely be remembered as the coach that won the league with Leicester, but there was a miracle that didn’t happen. Ranieri himself thinks this would be a bigger achievement than his Leicester season and there is a good reason why he thinks that. Ranieri was born in San Saba, a neighbourhood of Rome, and is a lifelong supporter of A.S. Roma. Ranieri had played one season for Roma in his career but hadn’t coached them before 1st September in 2009. His chance would come and it would be very successful.

Ranieri with The Prince

On 4 June 2007 would Ranieri become the new coach of Juventus. This would be a great idea for Juventus because they just came out of the Calciopoli. This was the first season with Juventus back in Serie A. Ranieri would be perfect to remake the image of the Old Lady. Juventus with Ranieri in charge would go on get 3rd place in Juventus’ first season back. Ranieri´s signings to get this success the first season were Vincenzo Iaquinta from Udinese and Zdeněk Grygera from Ajax. The next season would be less successful and instead of performing on the pitch, Ranieri had a war of words with Mourinho. The conflict started as soon as the season began. Mourinho criticized Ranieri for his old-fashioned mentality, and for failing to win an important title as a manager in his career. Mourinho made Inter the biggest threat to the Old Lady and their dominance throughout history. Mourinho won the league this season and Ranieri would get fired two games before the season’s end. Ranieri getting sacked would open the most wanted door in his eyes.

The war of words.

In Rome, Spalletti had massive success and was a favourite to the biggest jobs in Europe like Chelsea. Spalletti would start the season 2009-10 as the Roma coach. Roma would have a calm summer with the only signing being Nicolas Burdisso as well as Roma bringing in many loan players including Greco, Rosi, and Cerci. Roma would also sell Alberto Aquilani to an excellent price. He would go to Liverpool for 20 million euros.

Spalletti The Mad Man

After two defeats in the first two games of the season Spalletti would leave to Russia and more exactly Zenit Saint Petersburg. This was a big shock in Italy at the time. However, with bad news comes good news and on the 1st of September 2009 Ranieri would become the new manager of A.S Roma on a two-year contract.

Ranieri´s arrival to Rome

Ranieri would directly change Rom’s tactics and the first thing he did was change the formation to a 4-4-2 which is a Ranieri´s trademark. However, this was not a 4-4-2 in reality. The formation was actually 4-3-1-2 with all midfielder’s central and without any wingers. In the ball possession phase the team did not play the ball around. They were instead very direct in their form of play since it was not a team that preferred ball possession and had a rather fragmented and disjointed game, which is typical Ranieri. For this reason, the movement and positions of the players in the field were continually modified according to the game situation, and this meant they were very unpredictable in the built up play. At times Totti would drop extremely deep and other times would you see Riise playing as a winger by the looks of it. However, we can say that the 4-4-2 remain throughout the games. The circulation of the ball between defenders and midfielders is almost nonexistent. The fullbacks play high on the pitch because they are the creative force on the wings.

In the non-possession phase, the team always lined up with a 4-4-2 with very narrow lines and players often positioned all behind the ball line. This was their typical tactic because it makes it easier to make a transition to attack with this approach. Roma would try to carry out an organized press on the opponent half, which was most effective to create counters on the opponent. Furthermore, when their opponents pressed high the midfielders would drop down to the defensive line to help cover.

The player material at A.S Roma was pretty good when looking back at it. In goal Júlio Sérgio Bertagnoli, an okay keeper for his time and a solid man between the post, but his career was in decline and he wasn’t the big goalkeeping star like Julio Cesar at Inter. In Defence, they have the respected Riise on the left and Cassetti on the right, they both managed to have a great offensive contribution and specially Riise (5 goals) would be phenomenal for Giallorossi. At the center of the defence is there Juan and Burdisso who were two incredible defenders.

Riise, Juan and Brighi

De Rossi is the anchor of their midfield and the glue between midfield and defence. De Rossi is the team’s second most important figure after a greater player. Pizarro on the center-right was the all-around player of the team making huge differences in both ends. Taddei was notable for his versatility on the field, by playing almost every position. He would most times in offence go out on the wing and had a great partnership with Riise. The last player in the midfield isn’t Totti, but Perrotta. Perrotta was known for his pace and ability to play every position. Ranieri used Perrotta as a AM because of his ability to make attacking runs and his eye for goal from midfield.



The great midfield and The Prince of Rome

Finally, the attacking pair consisted of Vucinic (14 goals) and The Prince of Rome “Francesco Totti” (14 goals). They also had two alternative jokers in Menez and Baptista. Totti would have another amazing season with Vucinic.

Vucinic (best season of his career) and The Prince

The two first games of the season were against Juventus and Genoa. Both games ended with a loss and Ranieri took over from there. Ranieri first game as coach was against Siena, and Roma would win 2-1 away with goals from Mexes and Riise. Ranieri would have a good result for the next couple of games with 2 wins and 2 draws. Ranieri and co would have tough start by losing three games in a row from matchday 8 to 10. They would lose to AC Milan 2-1 then after that they would lose to Livorno at home and lastly would be a 2-1 defeat against Udinese away or more so Floro Flores (he scored twice for Udinese). The bad times were over after they won against Bologna 2-1 at home with goals from Perrotta and Vucinic. This was the beginning of an unbeaten streak on 24 games this would bring them into a title duel with Mourinho’s Inter.



Ranieri´s unbeaten streak had many significant results. First of all, Ranieri would win both of the two seasonal derbies against Lazio (goals by Cassetti in the first game and in the second game Vucinic would score twice to reassemble Rocchi’s goal on his return). Roma next game after Bologna was against Inter and the game would end up being a draw after goals from Vucinic and Eto´o. Vucinic would have a huge miss in the 2nd minute of the game after great through pass from Menez. Marco Motta makes a brilliant cross into Vucinic and this time Vucinic would not miss and Roma was in front. This happens just 10 minutes after his huge miss. Julio (Roma) makes a huge save just 3 minutes after Rom´s goal. Milito was clear through on goal and Julio makes the huge save, but at the start of the second half Eto´o gets a chance and he puts it away to make it 1-1. This would be the final result



The next huge win from Ranieri´s boys and Totti would be against Juventus away. This game was in mid-January and Juventus was at the time 5th and Roma 3rd. Juventus would be the better side throughout the first half and have the most chances. Juventus gets their goal at the start of the second half after a horrible clearance from Juan ends up at Del Piero’s feet and Del Piero sent a missile to the bottom right corner to make it 1-0. Roma would clap back harder after they got a fair penalty when Taddei made a fantastic skill on the Juventus defender. Totti would step up and take the penalty with no hesitation and score the equaliser. 9 minutes until the end of the game Buffon would get a red card. This opens the door for Roma and in the added minutes would the legendary John Arne Riise score on a header to finish the job and get the three points.



In January had Roma added the Tuscan striker Luca Toni to the squad. Luca Toni would be a part of the team, but mostly as a joker coming from the bench. Palermo was, to many people’s surprise today, a top team at this time. Palermo was in 5th place when meeting Roma at the Stadio Olimpico. I’m split on if this was their best game of the season or the game against Inter later on. Roma would go in a show why they wanted to win the league. Roma won the game 4-1 with goals from Brighi 2x, Baptista, Riise and Palermo´s goal came from none other than Miccoli.



Now, are we in late March and the two biggest teams in Serie A at the time Roma and Inter will play their second matchup at the Stadio Olimpico (Roma´s stadium). This game would decide if Roma had a chance for the title or not. To compare the situation would I say Napoli last year against Juventus, but Roma would get even closer. Mourinho had before the game criticizes Ranieri way of playing by calling it bad old-fashion football. This was matchday 31 of the season and it also looks like Inter and Roma should play the Coppa Italia final against each other. Roma came best from the start after Julio Cesar makes a silly mistake and De Rossi came first to the ball to tap it in (17th minute). Roma dominated the first half and was unlucky to not score the second goal.



Luca Toni and De Rossi celebrating the win against Inter.

Inter came into the second half and totally controlled everything and 20 minutes into the second half would they finally score 1-1 after a great tap in from Diego Milito. Sneijder was probably the best player on the pitch with his brilliant playmaking in the second half. But 7 minutes after their January transfer Luca Toni would score a typical Toni goal and make it 2-1. This would be the final result and keep Roma title hopes alive.



Roma jumped to first place after beating Atalanta with 5 games remaining. The next game they would beat their rivals Lazio 2-1 at home and then would the devastating day come. Roma was playing Sampdoria at home. Sampdoria was at the time 4th in the league and this was a must-win game for Giallorossi, but this wasn’t the Leicester fairytale and they would lose to Sampdoria 1-2. Ranieri was furious, but Ranieri would instead look dead inside at the press conference after the game. He knew this was it and Inter would win every single game to finish the season off. To make matter worse Roma would lose to Inter in the Coppa Italia final 1-0 after Diego Milito score.



Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts 1 Internazionale (C) 38 24 10 4 75 34 +41 82 2 Roma 38 24 8 6 68 41 +27 80 3 Milan 38 20 10 8 60 39 +21 70 4 Sampdoria 38 19 10 9 49 41 +8 67 5 Palermo 38 18 11 9 59 47 +12 65

This was not the fairytale he would have with Leicester, but more the worst defeat in his career. Ranieri has said himself that he probably would never forget the Roma run and it hurt him soo much. Ranieri has his second chance now with Roma and I hope this one would be his lucky time.



Stats:

All Roma´s Highlights From The Season 2009-10