Claudio Ranieri’s latest rescue cements his status as a true Cagliari hero

Cagliari carried Claudio Ranieri across the pitch after securing their survival in Serie A with a 2-0 win over Sassuolo.Photo: Elisabetta Baracchi/EPA” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/GFyqlsHw5J5JaBmY03Zh8Q–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU3Ng–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/theguardian_763/002f2dbe55288649a7 2ecb450ec54ea2″ data-src= “https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/GFyqlsHw5J5JaBmY03Zh8Q–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU3Ng–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/theguardian_763/002f2dbe55288649a72ecb4 50ec54ea2″/>

The penultimate weekend of the Serie A weekend was overshadowed by events off the pitch. On Friday, Juventus announced that they had fired their manager, Massimiliano Allegri, over his behavior at the end of the last Coppa Italia win over Atalanta. Two days later, as Inter prepared to celebrate their league title with a trophy lift at San Siro, fans wondered who their club would belong to next week.

Monday was the official deadline for their owners, Suning Capital, to repay debts of almost €395 million to Oaktree Capital, arising from a loan taken out in 2021. A public holiday in Luxembourg effectively extended the deadline to Tuesday, but an official statement from Inter president Steven Zhang on Saturday accused the lender of “a lack of meaningful engagement” in finding an “amicable solution”.

Related: Juventus sack Massimiliano Allegri for his behavior in the Coppa Italia final

What comes next for both clubs? Juventus Under-19 coach Paolo Montero will act as caretaker manager until the end of the season, but the hunt for a permanent replacement had already begun. Meanwhile, Oaktree is expected to take control of Inter if Suning cannot repay its debts – just as Elliott Management did with neighbors Milan in 2018.

However, these are stories that will continue for a while. It would be a shame if they completely distracted us from football at a time when so much drama is still taking place. This was the weekend in which Claudio Ranieri completed his latest opus: guiding Cagliari to a 2-0 victory over Sassuolo, guaranteeing the club a place in Serie A for another year, while condemning its opponents to relegation.

Most of the world may associate Ranieri primarily with the Premier League title he won at Leicester: an achievement that only feels more extraordinary as the years pass. In Cagliari, however, they have their own story about the man who led them out of the football wilderness almost forty years ago.

Cagliari was at a low ebb in 1988, playing in the third tier of Italian football. They finished one point above the Serie C1 relegation zone in the season before Ranieri arrived. Over the next three seasons he led them to successive promotions and then to top safety, even after they were rooted to the bottom of the table halfway through the table.

Ranieri left, venturing across Europe and taking turns visiting Italy’s richest and most prominent clubs. He even had two spells at Roma, the team he supported as a boy, but back in Cagliari they always regarded him as one of their own: an adopted Sardinian whose journey to coaching at the highest level had begun right there on the island.

Fans were thrilled by the news of his appointment last January, a prodigal son returning after 32 years. Even then, few could have predicted his impact. Cagliari were tied for 12th in Serie B, but were promoted via the play-offs. After being two goals down, he defeated Parma in the semi-finals and then won the final against Bari with a goal in the 94th minute of the second leg. .

How did he keep doing it? Older fans will remember Ranieri’s comeback against would-be champions Sampdoria in the 1991 relegation escape, recovering from 2-0 to 2-2 in the last 20 minutes. This season’s Cagliari side did twice better, turning a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 win against Frosinone in October.

The road to safety was a winding one. Ranieri offered to resign in February after a home defeat to Lazio left Cagliari in 19th place. They had lost 14 of 24 games and in the dressing room he told his players: “If I’m the problem, tell me now and I’ll hand in my notice.”

According to the newspaper La Repubblica, it was the striker Leonardo Pavoletti who spoke on behalf of the group and told Ranieri: “We are working like crazy. We are united. This wheel will turn.” That happened at exactly the right time. Cagliari drew their next match against Udinese, starting a run of thirteen matches in which they suffered only three more defeats.

The streak only looks more impressive when you look at some of the teams they’ve faced along the way. A two-week spell followed when Cagliari defeated Atalanta and then drew 2–2 against both Inter (who had yet to win their title) and Juventus. The Bianconeri needed an own goal for the equalizer in the 87th minute.

There has not been a single star player who has worn Cagliari. Their top scorer, Nicolas Viola, is a 34-year-old who has started just ten games and found the net five times. The January signings of Yerry Mina and Gianluca Gaetano certainly helped. The former became a regular at center back and the latter scored a further four goals while deployed in various roles in midfield and attack.

But this has been a season that reminds us why Ranieri was once the ‘Tinkerman’, constantly reshuffling his pack based on the form and fitness of his own players and the opposition. Cagliari’s formation has often been a variation on 4-4-2, but we’ve seen a back-five here, a Christmas tree there and 4-2-4s when the situation calls for it.

Fiorentina 2-2 Napoli, Torino 3-1 Milan, Lecce 0-2 Atalanta, Roma 1-0 Genoa, Inter 1-1 Lazio, Udinese 1-1 Empoli, Monza 0-1 Frosinone, Sassuolo 0-2 Cagliari

It was substitute Matteo Prati who gave them the lead against Sassuolo on Sunday after having the ball poked to him from his left by Alberto Dossena. The victory was sealed with Gianluca Lapadula’s penalty in stoppage time – a joyous moment for a man who was Serie B’s top scorer last season but has struggled to make an impact this campaign after a long recovery from ankle surgery in the summer.

Around 4,000 Cagliari supporters traveled to the Mapei Stadium, and the celebrations made it all worthwhile. How many of them had been there exactly 33 years earlier to see their team survive at the top level under Ranieri in Bologna, less than an hour’s drive away, on May 19, 1991?

This is not the end of a story. Ranieri, at 72, has previously said he could imagine coaching into his 80s, joking that he could hobble to the dugout with a walking stick if his mind still wanted it. He didn’t have to worry about that on Sunday, as the same players to whom he had offered his resignation three months earlier carried him triumphantly on their shoulders.

The city of Cagliari lost its greatest football hero in January, Gigi Riva, a player who scored 164 goals for his hometown club and guided them to their only Serie A title in 1970. On Sunday, Ranieri recalled a conversation they had after he beat Bari to secure promotion to the top flight last summer, saying: “Gigi asked me to tell the boys that it’s not just the fans in the stadium with us , but an entire island.”

Ranieri could never overtake Riva in the supporters’ affections, but these days he could well be in second place. He still has one year left on his contract at Cagliari, but the club’s president, Tommaso Giulini, stressed: “Contracts do not exist in his case. He can continue as long as he wants. As long as he has the fire in him.”