"I stopped coaching and I'm not saying it because I need to say it." These are the words of Claudio Ranieri, who thus begins his presentation press conference as Roma coach. An unexpected appointment until a few days ago, because the former Cagliari coach had announced he was quitting: "I've had more requests in these months than when I won the championship at Leicester, and I always said no. I told someone that there were only two cases in which I could return to coaching: either for Roma or for Cagliari , in case something went wrong. But I was super convinced that I would go off and do my own thing, watch football somewhere else."
Six months ago, in mid-May, the announcement that he would leave Cagliari and that he would no longer coach a club team . At most a national team. Instead now Ranieri takes over the Giallorossi bench for the third time and specifies: «Fate wanted me to return home», he underlines. «When I returned to Cagliari I said that my story began and ends in Cagliari: evidently fate, or something, made sure that I started at Roma as a player and ended as a coach and manager». With a passage also on the surprise of the Rossoblu fans in seeing him back on the bench: «Cagliari welcomed me as one of them, I wanted to say this for completeness».
At the end of the season, Ranieri will take up a managerial role at Roma , as agreed with the club's management in a meeting in London.