Claudio Ranieri has Leicester City defying all odds

As you pass through the door and climb the stairs at Peter Pizzeria, unlikely as it sounds, a series of fridge doors greet you. They are mounted on the wall and each sports a slogan. One declares: “People Disappoint: Pizza Is Eternal.”

Peter Pizzeria is in Leicester. This is where last month Claudio Ranieri brought his Leicester City players as a reward for their first clean sheet of the season.

There were not many disappointed people in Leicester that day, indeed there have not been many disappointed faces around the club or the city since Leicester began their rise from bottom of the Premier League table on April 4th with an 86th-minute winner against West Ham.

Fifty days and eight matches later, Leicester won 5-1 at home to QPR to seal a 14th place finish.

Now, 13 matches into this season, Leicester City are top of the Premier League and host second-placed Manchester United.

In the space of 22 games Leicester have gone from bottom to top. To call it remarkable seems like short-changing the players. What began as defiance under Nigel Pearson has morphed into something vibrant under Ranieri.

Jamie Vardy is the goalscoring spearhead of the highest-scoring side in the division. Leicester is a town built around a Roman road – the Fosse Way – and Vardy is as direct as one. Riyad Mahrez is a rather more meandering winger. Midfielder Danny Drinkwater is streetwise. “It’s not rocket science,” Drinkwater said this week.

Ranieri has continued on a winning direction, but it was first found by Pearson, who should not be forgotten. The three players mentioned were brought to Leicester under Pearson’s management.

Yet to sit at the club’s stadium on Thursday to hear Ranieri explain, and smile, his way through the routine of a pre-match press conference was to witness another element in the 2015 Leicester City story: the 64-year-old Italian.

Most of us owe him an apology for our scepticism when his appointment as Pearson’s successor was announced. “Uninspiring” was the word Leicester legend Gary Lineker chose and he spoke for many, but Ranieri has turned out to be the opposite.

Squad’s togetherness

Several times on Thursday Ranieri referred to the squad’s togetherness as a factor in Leicester’s run of 15 wins in those 22 matches. On only one occasion did he refer to himself. “I’m the Tinkerman,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.”

Ranieri’s pronunciation meant this sounded like: “I’m the Thinkerman”, and maybe that was what he said. He certainly merits some appreciation for the thought he has put into succeeding Pearson.

When he took his players out for that pizza, Ranieri made them make their own. It became a bonding exercise, not simply a pizza. “The most important ingredient for us is team spirit,” he said.

It was notable, too, that during his half-hour press conference – yes, he does shake everyone’s hand before it begins – Ranieri talked of “intelligence” on five occasions.

“I want intelligent men before players,” he said, “because if the man is intelligent he understands me very fast.”

He spoke of Anthony Martial’s intelligence as well – Ranieri was manager of Monaco when Martial was signed from Lyon – and of Esteban Cambiasso.

Cambiasso was one of the players of last season in England. He was 34 when he joined Pearson’s squad but intelligence and imagination got Cambiasso through. His departure to Olympiacos, along with Pearson’s removal, left a hole in Leicester.

“Cambiasso was the brain of Leicester last season,” Ranieri said. “But we have continued without him and we have some very good midfielders. People focus on Vardy and Mahrez obviously, but [N’Golo] Kanté and Drinkwater are the engine of the team.”

We are being forced to review our opinions – of Ranieri and of Leicester City.

It is 15 years since Ranieri succeeded Gianluca Vialli as manager of Chelsea and 11 years since he was eased out of Stamford Bridge by the new power, Roman Abramovich. Chelsea had just finished second in the Premier League and lost in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Ranieri was the nearly manager of a nearly team. In came José Mourinho.

But it was Ranieri who bought Damien Duff and Claude Makelele and while Chelsea came second in the league, it was in Arsenal’s “Invincible” season. Ranieri received more criticism for losing to Monaco in the Champions League semi-final, and that tends to obscure who Chelsea beat in the quarters – Arsenal.

Since then he has been to seven clubs in Spain and Italy and briefly managed Greece – when they lost to Northern Ireland in Piraeus last October. His management over the past five months has above all been considered and yet in all this time nothing has endured more than the label: Tinkerman.

Perhaps Ranieri deserves it, but it shows how one-dimensional and limiting our impressions can be.

The same for Leicester City. In England’s third division six years ago, in administration 13 years ago, Leicester fell into that fallen category along with Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Portsmouth and quite a few others. They had a shiny new stadium, but they had debt and second-tier football. People were disappointed.

Then in 2010 came new owners from Thailand and given the Thaksin Shinawatra experience at Manchester City, there was some trepidation. But Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha has brought sufficient financial stability for Ranieri to speak of a “project” and measured growth.

Peculiar tremor

We shall see. The peculiar tremor moving through Swansea City shows how quickly a club can be shaken and over the next six games Leicester meet United, Chelsea and Manchester City at home and Swansea, Everton and Liverpool away.

Just as it was possible to say back in March that the table was false – Leicester were 20th but had a game in hand and had to play seven of the 10 teams immediately above them – it also could be now.

After all, of those 15 victories in 22 league games, none has been against the sort of Champions League opposition they encounter against United. When Leicester have met Chelsea and Arsenal they have been beaten.

So this is a period to prove themselves real contenders, if not for the title, then for Europe. If that sounds unrealistic, remember that they have been there before. Under Martin O’Neill Leicester won two League Cups and were playing against the likes of Atletico Madrid at Filbert Street.

O’Neill’s team had a discernible togetherness, just as now, and the man himself is not short on intelligence. Leicester City have rediscovered those qualities – eternal qualities in sport, as they might say in Peter Pizzeria.