Blog

Claudio Ranieri could only have been convinced to come out of retirement by either Cagliari or AS Roma, and had turned down plenty of offers before answering the call of home, the new Roma manager said on Friday.

Ranieri announced his retirement at the end of last season after guiding Cagliari to Serie A safety, but after Roma sacked their second manager this season the 73-year-old agreed on Thursday to take charge until the end of the season.

It is Ranieri’s third spell as manager of Roma, the club where he began his playing career, and the Rome native will remain in a senior management role once his coaching term ends.

“I had stopped coaching, I have had more requests in recent months than when I won the league title with Leicester City,” Ranieri told a press conference.

“I have always said no. I said only in two cases can I return to coaching, either for Roma or Cagliari if something went wrong.

“I was convinced to have gone my own way, but fate wanted me to return home. I began at Roma as a player and I will finish there as an executive.”

Ranieri has no interest in what has gone wrong for Roma this season, in which saw Daniele De Rossi and Ivan Juric have been dismissed.

“There are a thousand reasons, and honestly I don’t care,” he said.

“If I go looking at what happened yesterday I won’t achieve anything. I was given carte blanche and I have to do my best with these players. From now on I am the one in charge.

“Changing two managers by November isn’t easy for anyone, one wants to play in a certain manner, one wants to play another way, so there is a bit of an electroshock, that’s normal.

Paulo Dybala’s absence against Bologna led to speculation that it had more to do with his contract’s automatic renewal clause on reaching a certain percentage of appearances than with the Argentine forward’s physical fitness.

Ranieri showed he means business when he revealed the conversation he had with Roma President Dan Friedkin.

“It’s the first thing I asked the president,” Ranieri said.

“I told him ‘I do as I please, I don’t want to know if he has clauses or not’.

“You can see that when Dybala is well he makes the difference, I wish he could always play but he won’t.”

Ranieri’s first game comes after the international break when Roma take on league leaders Napoli.