And so the Tinkerman will leave Stamford Bridge for the last time later this month with a severance cheque for a few million quid in his pocket but with only bitter-sweet memories of his time in west London.
Last night his expensively assembled team, having fought their way to the brink of qualification for the European Cup final, had to bend the knee to a group of players who, with one exception, would not have made it on to anybody's list of potential acquisitions for Chelsea since the arrival of Roman Abramovich.
Ranieri will say, with some justification, that he was in the middle of building a nice little team when the Russian petro-roubles suddenly expanded his squad. Last year, with no money to spend, he created a side with a spirit and a character of its own. It would be hard to say the same of the current team, which failed to capitalise on a good start in Monaco two weeks ago and failed again last night after establishing the two-goal lead that, had it been preserved, would have seen them through to the final.
Tinkerer or tinkered with? One day we may learn who really ordered the purchase of Joe Cole, Scott Parker, Hernan Crespo, Wayne Bridge, Adrian Mutu, Claude Makelele, Glen Johnson and Juan Sebastian Veron, most of whom have had some sort of professional relationship with Sven-Goran Eriksson. While Ranieri never expressed displeasure with the acquisitions, it may be that he would have chosen differently or even opted to save some of the oligarch's money.
Last night, when it came down to the ability of his side to score the goals that would guarantee him a welcome on the King's Road for the rest of his life, Ranieri chose to start with two strikers whose allegiance to Chelsea predates the arrival not only of Abramovich but of Ranieri himself. Some had assumed that Hernan Crespo, a man for the big occasion, would start. On this night of nights, however, Ranieri preferred to put his faith in two players who were bought by his predecessor, Gianluca Vialli.
The inclusion of Eidur Gudjohnsen was hardly a surprise. The Icelandic striker has been Chelsea's most consistent forward this season, and their most committed. When it came to choosing his partner, Ranieri evidently listened to the pleas of the veteran Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, whose 17 goals have made him the club's top scorer this season.
Both worked hard throughout the first half, linking effectively on several occasions as Chelsea's supporters responded to the brave, if foolhardy, words of their club captain, Marcel Desailly. "If we score early," the suspended Desailly wrote in his programme notes, "it will definitely help because French people, most of the time if we arrive at the last moment before achieving something, we fall."
Desailly, whose foul on Fernando Morientes sparked Monaco's fightback in the first leg, continued to tempt fate. "We [Chelsea] have the atmosphere where we give a long ball, the striker fights for it and the crowd roars. Then the ball is flicked, another player runs, and again the roar. With this Monaco will struggle, guaranteed, because their players don't know themselves how they've reached this level."
Some guarantee. The roars came, certainly, but Monaco showed no sign of being overawed. Instead Didier Deschamps' players kept their nerve, stuck to their belief in quick counter-attacking football and thoroughly deserved their first appearance in a European Cup final under a manager who has yet to complete his third season in the job.
No one can doubt that the final in Gelsenkirchen on May 26 will be a battle between Europe's two outstanding young coaches. The other, Porto's Jose Mourinho, was in attendance at Stamford Bridge last night and is expected to be taking up residence in the summer. But Deschamps, who spent the least distinguished season of his playing career with Chelsea, will surely be high on Abramovich's list should there be no agreement with the Portuguese manager.
Ranieri will say that he did everything possible last night to ensure victory and the chance of a marvellous end to his career with the club. But Monaco, having spent the opening 45 minutes absorbing the storm of Chelsea's attacks and testing the possibility of making rapid breakaways, profited from Hugo Ibarra's opportunism in first-half stoppage time before securing their passage on the hour with a piece of play thoroughly befitting the occasion.
Morientes's beautiful equaliser, which meant that Chelsea had to score three more goals to win the tie, was the product of a glorious move involving Jérôme Rothen, Patrice Evra and Lucas Bernardi. Epitomising the best of Monaco's quick-witted, light-footed play, it was orchestrated from beginning to end by the Spaniard, who may have been unable to hold on to his place among Real Madrid's galacticos but whose deeds in recent months will assure him of a permanent place in Monaco's firmament.
To say that not once over the 180 minutes of the tie did Chelsea come close to producing anything of such voluptuous quality is merely to accept the justice of the result. This, it became clear, was as far as Ranieri could take them - no trophies after all, just the memory of all that frenzied whistling and semaphoring, with a shrug and a smile afterwards, not enough in the end.
