Title win would be Il Papa of them all, Claudio
The shysters see Leicester as an unwelcome wrinkle in their plans
IF the men who stole the people’s game had their way, Claudio would never get to meet the Pope. All will be explained, if only you keep the faith.
Our story, one increasingly likely to end in a heartening victory for the little guys everywhere, begins way back when Chelsea were still almost loveable west London upstarts managed by the genuinely likeable Ranieri.
It was a slow news day at the Blues’ old training ground near Heathrow, the incoming international flights touching down at T4 providing a less-than-pastoral soundscape as maybe half a dozen of us gathered around the allenatore in the hope of picking up some fresh insight, genuine news or — as was often the case — a funny line.
‘Claudio?’ began one of Fleet Street’s finest, striking out on an ambitious tack. ‘Did I read something in an Italian newspaper this week about you meeting the Pope?’
There followed a confused pause, not all that unusual in discussions with a man still perfecting the niceties of English.
When Ranieri did start to speak, it was with a huge grin on his face, the former Napoli, Fiorentina, Valencia and Atletico Madrid head coach explaining that, yes, he’d given an interview to Gazzetta or Corriere dello Sport — and that, indeed, the question of Il Papa had ari s en. But only in a metaphorical sense.
In Italy, he explained, football folk had a term for managers who regularly got their team i nto position to win the league, only to fall short at the last. According to Claudio, they say of these nearly men: ‘He always goes to Rome — but he never meets the Pope.’
Admitting that such a charge had often been laid at his feet, he added: ‘So I said to this journalist in Italy: “This year I am going to Rome — and I finally hope to meet the Pope.”’
Sadly, it wasn’t to be for his Chelsea team that season. He didn’t last much longer at Stamford Bridge, but it’s worth remembering that many of the players he either signed or promoted from within would go on to claim Barclays Premier League glory under a successor with a God complex.
Having since tried and failed to land top-flight league titles with Juventus, Roma and Inter Milan, among others, he couldn’t have dreamed of finally achieving a lifelong ambition with Leicester City.
Nor c ould t he c l ub have imagined that this wise old head would work such wonders.
Yet there they stand, five points clear with nine games remaining. It is a sight to bring joy to anyone with a pulse. Well, almost anyone.
For, apart from supporters of the teams closest to Leicester, there is a new breed of ‘ football people’ who view this sort of upstart insurgency as an unwelcome wrinkle in their plans.
At a time when these men in perfectly-tailored suits are flexing their f ranchise muscles and floating reheated ideas about a closed-shop European league, any sudden blast of meritocracy is most unfortunate.
The present-day flim-flam artists bear a passing resemblance to the previous generation who finagled their way into football with a conman’s swagger.
They stole more than a living in six-figure wages and accompanying bonuses by convincing those most invested in the game — the fans — that what we really needed were breakaway leagues, pay-per-view bonanzas and bumper revenue streams.
If the new lot are more polished than their predecessors, their motivation is exactly the same.
Because it’s an undeniable truth that, especially in the competitive world of sport, the rich and powerful will always seek to make themselves ever more rich and infinitely more powerful.
Hence the recurring love of top- down revolution, of forming exclusive little cabals. Or, as was so often the case when our own local scene was still dominated by an Old Firm, the irrepressible ardour for joining a more commercially rewarding competition in another country.
These shysters with t heir breathless talk of global markets, these relentless social climbers who would deny the most deserving club from the ‘wrong’ market entry to their private club?
You know what they all think of little Leicester. They believe the game could live without them. Would be happier if all such medium-sized nonentities returned to whence they came, leaving ample room for the big brands to fill all the broadcast slots in the emerging American market. They are, of course, dead wrong. What Leicester have achieved so far, what they may still achieve with nine games to go, is the reason we l ove f ootball. The unpredictability, the romance, the daring to dream at the start of every season.
That’s the essence of a game that, for all i ts prefabricated vanities, retains the power to enthral like no other sport.
So, whether you believe in a higher power or not, get down on your knees and pray that Claudio ends this season as guest of honour at the Vatican.
If that upsets the money lenders who have invaded football’s temple, well, to quote from one of Charlton Heston’s distinctly non-Biblical roles, damn them all. Damn them all to hell.