What does Claudio Ranieri have in common with Brad Pitt, Sean Connery and Paul Newman? The answer, according to an obscure website, is that they all wear Rolexes. They have the photographs to prove it. And there, next to an array of international superstars looking suave and broodingly handsome, is a 51-year-old football coach wearing a blue tracksuit, hairstyle battling against the drizzle, pulling at his cheeks with his fingers to give his squirrely features a comically downcast expression, with a hint of Swiss watch showing at the edge of his sleeve.
To ally Ranieri to a generation of players more motivated by status symbols than sporting laurels would be a preposterous mistake, however. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Chelsea's enigmatic manager has been totally misunderstood on these shores. It would not be stretching the point to argue that English football owes him an apology. Ranieri was mercilessly ridiculed in the early days of his Chelsea career, merrily presented as a bumbling fool, a queer fish, a walking malapropism, before anyone had taken the chance to get to know him or what he believed in. It turns out Ranieri is impressively capable at his job.
Although few took the trouble to notice, his football experience is so unique he is actually the solution to one of those quiz questions that drive fans to distraction. How many managers have worked in Europe's three big leagues - the Premiership, Primera Liga and Serie A ? One. Ranieri - and he hadn't noticed either. 'Only me? Hehehe!' he chuckles. 'I didn't know that.' He brushes it aside as insignificant in relation to his desire to make a success of this season. Attempting to compliment him about it makes him blush. He doesn't like compliments. He is a Roman but not, he insists, a stereotypical one. 'I am too timid,' he says bashfully.
Chelsea's smooth run along the rails towards the top of the Premiership has convinced many to forget those preconceptions of Ranieri and start again. So, what is he like if everybody got it so wrong? One thing is sure: he is in his element when he is out on the pitch working with his players, energy sizzling from him as he skits around and cajoles his men. Afterwards, the man who ambles upstairs at Chelsea's Harlington training ground to talk is calmer, thoughtful, unpretentious and impeccably polite. He offers a warm greeting and settles down in an orange plastic chair to discuss football. Thankfully, it is soon apparent that speaking English is less of an ordeal for the Italian than it once was. Those agonising moments where he racks his brains for a word are virtually gone, and there is less need for the quirky jokes and slapstick laughs he used to throw in to try to mask his linguistic deficiencies. He speaks more seriously, more sincerely, of his footballing ideas.
Chelsea's improvement this season appears genuine enough for people to wonder if Ranieri has cured the erraticism, the inbuilt flaw that has always undermined their potential. Why the sudden enhancement? He cites three key reasons. The first, his command of English. 'It was very frustrating before,' he admits. 'Sometimes the manager needs a reaction by saying the right word at the right time.' He mimes words going in one ear and out the other. 'Of course I wanted more, and I felt I wasn't as effective as I wanted to be as a coach. But I knew sooner or later I would get into my players' heads.'
The second factor was that Chelsea's voracious appetite for transfers dried up last summer. Only Enrique De Lucas arrived, and he was free. It has been a blessing in disguise. 'In the last few seasons it was always change, change, change, three, four, five players,' says Ranieri. 'For the first time there wasn't much change. The block is very solid now and everybody knows each other, everybody develops together. I was waiting for the likes of Frank Lampard, Emmanuel Petit, everybody, to improve because I was sure they would before long. There were too many countries in this dressing room, too much disunity. Now there is more spirit.'
The third aspect is basically a consequence of the first two. 'I know my players better and they know me better.'
They know that anything less than robust temperament will not be tolerated. The new mentality among the squad transmits a sense of 'enough is enough' with underachieving, fancy-Dan Chelsea. 'Now they have another spirit,' says Ranieri, patting his head on the patch which is beginning to go bald.
'I like English spirit,' he announces. 'When I played I was an English-style centre-half. Always with my heart, always with my fighting spirit. In my opinion if you only show quality but no fighting spirit, you are half a player. I worked a lot on this. I always want fighting spirit first. If you lack it you cannot play in this country.'
Having experienced Italian and Spanish philosophies, he feels a much closer bond to the do-or-die approach of the Premiership. It is, he says, his favourite footballing atmosphere. 'The culture in Italy is to make sure you don't concede a goal, then be clever and try to score. The first instinct in Spain is the show. Enjoy yourself with the ball. The Spanish want a spectacle, they want quality, they want goals. In England there is another spirit. War spirit. COME ON! [With a gravel-voiced roar and clenched fist he is animated now.] There is a war! All together! This is my spirit. And then if you can play well on top of that, play well. But first kill the opponent.'
Given that Chelsea's game is controlled pressing rather than out-and-out combat, you wonder how his players respond to such forceful exhortations. Perhaps he had to make his case in brutal warrior terms in order to shake up these wealthy young men. He seems to have struck a chord.
After two-and-a-half seasons he feels he belongs now. He has also set up home in England with his family, something he never did in Spain. His was a curious existence there, based in a hotel for the best part of three seasons while his wife and daughter stayed in Rome. They travelled to see each other as often as possible but, naturally, he never felt completely at ease with the arrangement. It came about because Valencia, his first club in Spain, told him a porky when they came to woo him.
Back in 1997, when Italian clubs reigned in Europe, there was a trend in Spain to import what they regarded as the best coaches around. Ranieri's CV contained a string of successes. Having cut his managerial teeth in the equivalent of the Conference with Vigor Lamenzia and Campania, small clubs in southern Italy, his break came with Cagliari, who he guided to successive promotions. This caught the eye of Napoli, where he came across a young magician by the name of Gianfranco Zola and took the team into the Uefa Cup. His reputation really flourished at Fiorentina, where he turned one of Italy's most complicated clubs into serious competitors. Promotion to Serie A , followed by an Italian Cup and SuperCup and a European semi-final, were halcyon days for the now defunct club. Ranieri contemplates their demise sadly. 'A tragedy,' he laments.
Ranieri recalls his surprise when Valencia first contacted him. He had never given a thought to working abroad, and told them to come and see him in Rome if they wanted to talk. They were there the next day. Negotiations went well, especially when Valencia informed him there was an Italian school in the city for his daughter to complete her education. 'That was a lie,' Ranieri shrugs. Living alone in Spain, he concentrated on his work and built the foundations for the outstanding Valencia team which went on to reach two Champions League finals and win La Liga . Journalist Eduardo Torrico recalls the esteem in which he was held. 'He is loved by the people of Valencia. Although Hector Cuper took them to the European finals they still remember Ranieri because his team played a more spectacular game than Cuper.' Incidentally, he is also remembered for speaking the most fluent Spanish of all the Italian coaches who came during that spell.
Moving on to Atletico Madrid proved the one low point for Ranieri, who was sacked in less than a year, before his team were relegated. In mitigation, it was a dreadful time. The Atletico president, Jesús Gil y Gil, was jailed and the club placed in administration halfway through the season. As Ranieri is fond of joking, it was the only time a president has been booted out before the coach.
Ranieri still regards his time in Spain fondly and last week went to watch his former team, Valencia, playing at Arsenal. 'When it's possible I always go to Highbury to watch Champions League. I'd like to play Champions League, so if it's not possible I go to watch. I can't help thinking why can't Chelsea be there? But I have to be quiet because when we play against Hapoel Tel Aviv or Viking Stavanger in Europe, we go out. I don't understand why. It's frustrating.' He remarks - clearly irritated - that this season's Uefa Cup flop against the Norwegians occurred during a very bad week for Chelsea. Beforehand they lost to West Ham, afterwards at Liverpool. Those are their only defeats all season. Since then they have been unerringly consistent.
So, why not Chelsea for the title? The question has been asked often, after each of their recent victories. It has not been forgotten that Ranieri dismissed his side's chances in pre-season, and journalists feel obliged to inquire if performances might have forced a rethink. Every week Ranieri replies cagily that his ambition is to finish in the top four.
'If I start saying Chelsea will challenge for the title it's very stupid,' he explains. 'Why do it? Everybody knows Chelsea have a good team which always lacked consistency. The real problem of Chelsea was,' - he repeats for emphasis, 'I hope was - inconsistency. Now, if this year they can find consistency - and at the moment we have it - Chelsea can fight for the title. But we are only halfway through the season and for me it's too early to judge.' Ranieri has been studying the tables and provides statistics to back up his caution. Manchester United won the Premiership with 80 points two years ago, Arsenal with 87 points last year. Chelsea amassed 61 and 64 points respectively. 'That's the truth,' he adds. 'It's too easy to say Chelsea will fight for this and that. I want to fight for the title, of course, but the main thing I want is to improve on last season.'
Back home in Italy, where he is often a guest via satellite link on the equivalent of Match of the Day , they are beginning to take note of his work at the Bridge. Oddly, though, his name seldom features in rumour-mongering over the big jobs. Another stint in Serie A or La Liga is a possibility one day, as is the idea of trying his luck on the international stage. 'I'd like to train a national team. If it was Italy, of course it would be the best, but if it's another nation I'd like that too. But first I have work to do here.' The one word he cannot find in English during our conversation is favola - fairytale. And he desperately wants to write one at Chelsea.
To answer the critics? No. He shakes his head and says he was never hurt by the scathing mockery, even though he had every reason. 'It's your culture. In Italy they praise you first and then bury you. Here they criticise first and it's up to you to prove them wrong. I know myself, I know I work hard. I know results are everything. If I achieve results I am right, and it's not important what anybody says. The results speak loudest. I want to win something with Chelsea because I am happy when I make others happy.'
Ranieri is not the man we thought he was when he arrived, unfeted and untrusted, at Stamford Bridge in the aftermath of Gianluca Vialli's abrupt dismissal. For the benefit of his critics, the Italian for I'm sorry is: Mi dispiace .
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