Claudio Ranieri expressed his sheer delight in leading his Cagliari team back to the Italian top flight via the Serie B play-offs on Saturday night, speaking of his gratitude to the club and its supporters for giving him his first opportunity as a coach in professional football.
Ranieri also admitted that even at the highest point of his career, winning the Premier League with Leicester in 2016, his mind was still with those in Cagliari.
The 71-year-old spoke to DAZN immediately after his side sealed their spot in Serie A on Sunday evening, thanks to Leonardo Pavoletti’s dramatic 84th minute winner, which set the scores to 2-1 on aggregate.
Ranieri told the broadcaster that the win was: “A great relief. Cagliari means everything to me,” he said. “33 years ago I became a coach here and this club allowed me to travel around Europe, I will always be grateful to this area and its people.
“I was afraid to come back, to tarnish the beautiful memories I had here, then a sentence from Gigi Riva struck me and something more important clicked in my mind. it would have been selfish not to accept Cagliari’s proposal, given that the club was going through a difficult period.”
Cagliari had been languishing in mid-table at the time of Ranieri’s arrival at the beginning of 2023, though the Rossoblu soon began to claw their way back up the Serie B table, eventually landing in the play-off spots.
Over the course of the last few seasons, however, the club had been faltering and seemed unable to put in a campaign worthy of promotion.
Ranieri admitted that even when he was coaching at other clubs, he would always keep an eye out for Cagliari results and longed for them to get back to winning ways.
“After each defeat, my heart ached,” Ranieri told the press. “It was a deep wound. My feeling for this shirt is authentic, I remember when I won the Premier League, I immediately thought about the Rossoblu colours.
“I will always be grateful to those who brought me back to Sardinia. And I want to think about our fans, our people and our people . Not only to those who come to the stadium, and we have a small stadium, but also to all those who have supported us until the end in recent weeks. Having given joy to such a passionate group of supporters makes me so proud.”