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MILAN. — Claudio Ranieri says Leicester’s stunning English Premier League soccer title win is not as impressive as Nottingham Forest’s success under Brian Clough in the late 1970s.
Leicester’s incredible achievement — winning the Premier League just two years after promotion from the Championship — has been hailed as one of sport’s greatest fairytales.
But Ranieri thinks Forest’s transformation from second-tier outfit to European champions in the space of three years trumps the Foxes.
Forest won promotion to the First Division — the forerunner to the Premier League — in the 1976-77 season, and then won the top-flight title the very next year.
The following year they won the European Cup, and repeated the feat in 1980.
Ranieri told Gazzetta dello Sport: “Nottingham Forest was a bigger success story than ours, because they came from the second division, won the league title then two European titles in succession.
“I hope we get to their level in a few years.”
Ranieri also admitted he would love to coach Italy one day, but has committed his immediate future to a Leicester City side that, he believes, could spring a few surprises in next season’s Champions League.
“I would never rule it out. I would love it. And Leicester’s blue shirts are already quite similar to those of Italy,” Ranieri said in a Gazzetta dello Sport interview yesterday.
As Leicester’s fans continue to soak up the club’s incredible title-winning feat, Ranieri’s achievement has made the 64-year-old the toast of his native Italy.
On Monday, he was awarded the “Bearzot Prize” for sporting excellence and the “Palma d’Oro” (Golden Palm) by the Italian Olympic Committee in Rome, following in the footsteps of 2006 World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi.
It came in the presence of Italian football federation president Carlo Tavecchio, who said he wants to see Ranieri steering Italy to a fifth World Cup crown.
After the experience as coach of Greece, who sacked him after defeat to the Faroe Islands ended their hopes of qualifying for Euro 2016, Ranieri admitted: “I was curious to know what it would be like to coach a national team, but my experience with Greece was enough. Obviously, being coach of Italy would be different.”
But for the moment, Ranieri is staying put as he believes Leicester’s “fairytale of beating the English Premier League giants” could be extended to next season’s Champions League.
“I know a lot of (European) clubs will be thinking, ‘it’s OK, it’s only Leicester we’ve got’. But we’ll be playing the Champions League with exactly the same attitude.”
Ranieri admitted that while it had been a culture shock in the English Midlands, he has already curbed the Leicester players’ appetite for beer, but struggles to limit their intake of spicy food.
“The beer isn’t a problem,” said the Italian when asked if he had to change his players’ eating habits. “They always asked my permission. It was more the food. They love all that spicy stuff.”
And while rejecting the need for players worth “30-40 million” who could “ruin the dressing room”, the Italian has urged his in-demand stars to remain at the club.
“I know a lot of my players can now go where they want, but I told them that after another year they will have even more experience and they will be worth even more,” said Ranieri. — AFP.
Online Reporter