Claudio Ranieri on Thursday waved goodbye to Cagliari and brought the curtain down on a near four-decade club coaching career with their 3-2 defeat to ACF Fiorentina cruelly inflicted in the 13th minute of stoppage-time.
Arthur stroked home Fiorentina’s winning goal from the penalty spot after Luca Beltran earned the away side, who trailed 2-1 in the 85th minute, a soft spot-kick given after a long video check.
Fiorentina won and ensured their place in European competition with the last kick of Ranieri’s final match in charge of Cagliari.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Former Premier League winner Ranieri has now effectively retired, even if he said in an interview with Sky in Italy that he would be interested in a national team job.
However, Thursday’s defeat made little difference to Ranieri or Cagliari as last weekend he saved from relegation the same club he brought up from Serie B last season and with whom he rose to prominence in the late 1980s.
Ranieri began his managerial career in amateur soccer in 1986, but turned heads by guiding Cagliari to Serie A with two successive promotions in 1989 and 1990.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“What we managed to do, we did together,” Ranieri said in a short post-match speech on the pitch. “I asked for your help a year and a half ago because only with you could we do what we did.”
Ranieri welled up on the sidelines ahead of kick-off as fans chanted his name and a standing ovation rolled around the stands, while a banner was unfurled that read: “Eternal gratitude to a great man.”
Afterward he hugged his players and family in front of a crowd that roared in appreciation of one of Italian soccer’s most beloved figures.
The 72-year-old said that his decision to quit had been made with a “heavy heart,” worrying that he would tarnish two brilliant spells nearly 40 years apart with Cagliari by staying on.
Ranieri had offered to quit following just three points from the first nine matches of the season, but the club and players convinced him to stay, and survival was dedicated to Ranieri, who has been frequently hailed by his team as an inspiration.
“He’s taught us things that are valuable not just on the pitch, but in life in general,” Gianluca Lapadula told DAZN pre-match. “If you don’t fight for your teammate, the man next to you, you’ll never go anywhere.”
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds said it felt like an “impossible dream” when fellow Hollywood A-lister Rob McElhenney first floated the idea of buying soccer club Wrexham, along with a pitch for a documentary. The ultimate goal was reaching the Premier League. Four years after they purchased the north Wales outfit, Wrexham are one league away from achieving their lofty goal after a 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic on Saturday saw them promoted for a record third consecutive time. “We were standing there doing a press conference four years ago, and said our goal is to make it to the Premier League, and
RSS