brings Cagliari to Serie A and shuts down the chants against the opponents – Corriere.it

The Miracle Man continues to make impossible dreams come true with a gentle gentlemanly, astonishing in his ordinary normalcy. Claudio Ranieri
he signed another masterpiece, the promotion of Cagliari back in Serie A a year after a bitter relegation. Tears of joy, a liberating and sobbed cry, to embrace a victory snatched at the last second of the last minute in the Bari stadium, dumbfounded and shocked. Childish tears on the red face of a 71-year-old gentleman, to wash away the tension and for the emotion of having brought a team, a city and Sardinia back to the top. Tears that fogged up his eyes and glasses, not the lucidity to go under his curve in celebration and say no to the chants against his opponents, mortified by the merciless “Serie B, Serie B”, shouted by the Sardinian ultras, invited instead by the coach to applaud the defeated.

«I asked my fans and players not to cheer against them, I don’t understand why it should be done. I said: no chorus against Bari, why do they have to suffer something like this? You have to cheer for your team and that’s it.” A gesture as normal as it is unusual in the tonnara of coarse parties, underlined by the president of the FIGC, Gabriele Gravina: «A lesson in elegance. The behavior of characters with great sensitivity can marginalize the rude from football.

A moment like this fixes it in legend who is really a
Sir, nickname earned by Ranieri in England, where he wrote the history of this century of football by bringing the anonymous Leicester, relegated a few days ago, to win the Premier League. It was the planetary party of a team of recruits, which gradually became a story of redemption, a fairy tale without borders told in every corner of the planet. Thanks to Ranieri, «er slice» as they called him as a boy, in the alleys of Rome, when he was still only the son of the butcher who ran away from the shop to kick a ball. Not very educated, he only had his feet, like a full-back from Catanzaro to two tough guys like Di Marzio and Mazzone. «Er slice» has become Sor Claudius, up to Sir of football.

The whole city was there to celebrate Cagliari’s promotion, at the airport on the night of the triumph, in the streets of the center under the gaze of the statue of the Savoy king Carlo Felice, in name and in fact. A déjà vu for Ranieri who had begun his coaching career in Cagliari in 1988, taking the club from C to A in two years. «It’s an enormous emotion. My doubt about returning to Cagliari was the fear of not succeeding in the enterprise, it would have been a pity. I’m a Roma fan, but in the Premier League after the Scudetto with Leicester I said I owed everything to Cagliari. Here was my beginning, I could not go back, be selfish. In Cagliari I feel the defeats a lot, more than the victories. Here I became a coach, I didn’t want to dirty this memory. Not focusing on the promotion would have destroyed me inside: it’s a liberation ».

It wasn’t obvious. When Ranieri arrived in place of the exonerated Liverani, Cagliari were behind in the standings, close to the relegation zone. Then the triumphal ascent.

The legend Gigi Riva has photographed the thought of a people: «We have to start from him». The president Tommaso Giulini celebrates “a wonderful enterprise”, the mayor Paolo Truzzu promises “to do everything possible to build the new stadium”. And while the public celebrates the promotion, from the stands of the Unipol Domus, for years a temporary venue for the rossoblùs, the chorus “Risorgeremo” descends, a motto coined by Ranieri himself more than thirty years ago, when Cagliari was drowning in C. fairy tale man thanks. «It was a difficult mission, you were close to it. I hope to do well next year too.” In Serie A, with Cagliari «which is everything to me».