A gentleman to the end

I can’t remember the exact date, but it was in the early summer of 1996 that I was passing through the 8th floor of the Philips offices in Croydon when I heard, from within a desk cubicle, “Fuck me! They’ve signed Vialli!”. A marketing manager and fellow Chelsea fan had just received a text message telling him that Gianluca Vialli - who had, just days before, been the Champions League-winning captain of Juventus - had signed for Chelsea on a free transfer. 

It’s hard to describe, even now, how Earth shattering this news was. Even in 1996, with Manchester United in the middle of their imperious domination of English football, it was unusual for a proper European superstar to join a Premier League club, let alone a player who had just won the European Cup as captain of ‘The Old Lady’ of Turin. And now he was joining an apparently underwhelming club that hadn’t won a major trophy in 26 years. 

Vialli’s arrival at Chelsea can be seen as significant in the transformation of English football. It is inseparable from the rise of the Premier League as the world’s most lucrative football competition, attracting stellar talent and broadcasters willing to pay top dollar to watch them. A month or so before Vialli joined the club it had appointed Ruud Gullit as, initially, player-manager. The Dutchman was, himself, a glamorous, ‘sexy’ European idol whose own move to Chelsea - even long after his playing usefulness had evaporated - brought stardust to West London.

Vialli was Gullit’s first, and unlikely, signing. But even with the striker being presented to the press holding a Chelsea shirt, it was hard at first for fans to grasp the concept of such a European football giant in their midst. Gullit, who’d won three Serie A titles and two European Cups with AC Milan, had been brought to Chelsea by Glenn Hoddle the year before, at the start of the club’s change in fortunes. It still took some getting used to the idea of a Ballon d’Or and a two-time World Soccer Player Of The Year winner on the club’s books. The acquisition of ‘name’ players like Mark Hughes suggested that Chelsea were emerging from near calamitous times in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the club yo-yo’d between the old First and Second Divisions, and even flirted with financial collapse. Its relative resurgence was being part-propelled by millionaire Matthew Harding who became a director in 1993. With Gullit replacing Hoddle, his Filofax of international connections soon brought in Vialli, followed by fellow Italians Gianfranco Zola and Roberto Di Matteo. Suddenly, Chelsea Football Club looked glamorous again, even if they hadn’t actually won anything.

Italian football was very much in vogue in 1996. Italia 90 had made us all fall in love with the country and its footballing culture, aided also by Channel 4’s Football Italia in 1992, presented by James Richardson. By 1996, those who knew their football, knew Gianluca Vialli. Those who knew their Serie A, knew what Vialli’s arrival at Chelsea meant. My Philips colleague’s expletive exclamation was entirely justified. This was on a par with, say George Clooney joining the cast of EastEnders.

Having just turned 32 when he signed for Chelsea, there were the inevitable sniffy comments from rival supporters that the apparently nouveau riche Chelsea had acquired Vialli on a free because he’d exceeded his usefulness in Italy. Not so. In his time as a player at the club, he went on to score 40 goals in 88 appearances. Two of those goals came in his first season: in January 1997 Chelsea faced Liverpool at home in the FA Cup fourth round. 2-0 down at half time, Hughes and Zola clawed back a goal each early in the second half, even with Chelsea having lost defender Scott Minto to a red card. Chelsea’s comeback was completed by goals from Vialli in the 63rd and 76th minutes. His legendary status at the club was secured within his first few months as a player. Chelsea would go on to win the FA Cup that season, with Di Matteo scoring his famous goal against Middleborough after just 42 seconds of play at Wembley. I was there, and just as Vialli’s arrival had been somewhat other-worldly, to see the club I’d supported since childhood winning one of the greatest trophies in sport, for the only time in my conscious lifetime, was another moment to bewilder. 

When Gullit was sacked in February 1998, Vialli followed the Dutchman’s earlier transition from player to player-manager and took over. His first game in charge was a League Cup semi-final against Arsenal, before which he gave each of his players a glass of champagne in the changing room. Chelsea went on to win 3-1, reversing Arsenal’s lead from the first leg. It’s a small piece of the Vialli legend, but a compelling snapshot of just why his death, announced yesterday, has brought a palpable pall over football, and the Chelsea community.

People talk lovingly about footballing greats when they die, but I’ve never heard of a player as loved or as revered as Vialli. I once let him pass me on the stairs leading down from the East Stand commentary box at Stamford Bridge and felt a genuine presence, even if he was wrapped up in an ostentatiously Italian scarf, coat and hat combination. I’m not easily starstruck (I’ve met plenty of musicians and actors in my career), but to even stand in the same space as Vialli was a ‘moment’, simply because of what he represented in his relatively brief time at Chelsea. 

While the sort of success that came in the Abramovich era was still somewhat beyond the club’s reach when Vialli was in charge, he still took them to the quarter-finals of their first ever Champions League run (which included a 3-1 victory over Barcelona) and another FA Cup trophy in 2000, beating Aston Villa. In total, he won five trophies with the club in less than three years, including the European Cup Winners’ Cup, making Vialli - at 33 - the youngest manager to win a major European trophy. The silverware alone, in my mind, qualifies  him still as one of the greatest figures to have ever played or worked for Chelsea.

In its obituary the club itself wrote: “As soon as he walked through the door at Stamford Bridge, when already a global football star, Luca declared his wish to become a Chelsea legend. It is a target he undoubtedly reached, revered for his work on the pitch and in the dugout during some of the most successful years in our history. Loved by fans, players and staff at Stamford Bridge, Luca will be sorely missed not just by the Chelsea community, but the entire footballing world, including in his native Italy, where he was such an iconic figure.”

These are the words you invariably read when a much loved figure in football passes on. But for me, at least, laden with poignancy. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine someone in the game to endear himself so profoundly to fans and those he worked with. Everyone seems to note how charming he was, funny and, despite his prodigious achievements in the game, even long before he came to SW6, lacking the rampaging ego so many big names in the sport seem to possess today. His likeability, amongst the Chelsea fanbase, was enhanced by his wholesale embrace of London and the sense of Italian style he brought to it. For years I’ve worn black V-neck sweaters purely because Vialli did.

Nothing at Chelsea lasts forever, and after indifferent performances early in the 2000-2001 season, leading to a strained relationship between Vialli and his players, the club sacked him. The consensus was that Chelsea had, with Gullit and then Vialli, tried and failed with two legends of the game as young player-managers. That said, the approach had still managed to net silverware that had proven elusive since the 1970s. Perhaps, too, in appointing Claudio Ranieri, the club had learned that a foreign perspective and a little Italian charm went a long way.

News that Vialli had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer first emerged in November 2018, but after 18 months of chemotherapy - and out of the spotlight - he was given the all-clear. Still, though, the Italian remained typically modest, telling a TV interviewer in his home country, with remarkable honesty: “I cannot fight with cancer because I would not be able to win this battle, it is a much stronger opponent than me. Cancer is an unwanted travel companion, but I can't help it.” Defiantly, though, he kept going. “I have to go ahead and travel with my head down, never giving up, hoping that one day this unwanted guest will get tired and leave peacefully for many years because there are still so many things I want to do in this life.” 

In 2019 Vialli joined his former Sampdoria strike partner Roberto Mancini in the Italian national set up. But at the end of last year the cancer returned, and he stepped down from his role with the Azzurri. Presciently, in March last year, he’d told a Netflix documentary: “I know that I probably will not die of old age, I hope to live as long as possible, but I feel much more fragile than before.”

Picture: Getty Images

Vialli handled his cancer journey with humility, even devoting a book to it - Goals: Inspirational Stories To Help Tackle Life’s Challenges, a compendium of stories examining the human spirit. Reading it again now, it reflects both his courage and his sense of humour. “Illness can teach a lot about who you are, and can push you to go beyond the superficial way in which we live,” he said at one point.

“I can‘t tell you how good a guy he was,” a visibly moved Graeme Souness told Sky Sports yesterday morning, minutes after the news of Vialli’s death had been announced. Like Mancini, the Scot had played with Vialli at Sampdoria. “Forget football for a minute, he was just a gorgeous soul. He was a truly nice human being,” Souness added. “I went to Italy when I was 31-years-old. He was 20 and he was just fabulous to be around. Such a fun loving guy, he was full of mischief. He was such a warm individual and a fabulous player.“

“I think it’s so typical of him that he kept [his cancer] very private, very personal and he took it on as I’d expect him to take it on,” Souness said. “It was his fight, wanted to deal with it himself, didn't want to burden other people with it.”

Like so many successful sportsmen and women, Luca Vialli was a serial winner. The sight of him celebrating Italy’s success over England in the Euro 2020 final at Wembley brought no pleasure to me as an English supporter, but still brought a smile to my face - a footballing hero revelling in victory. Of course, it’s a sight you see with any sporting endeavour reaching a conclusive outcome, but somehow, the fact that it was Vialli made it more enjoyable. Satisfying, even.

Apart from that fleeting encounter on the staircase at Stamford Bridge, I never met Gianluca Vialli. Why would I have done? When he came to Chelsea he was a near-mythical football God. In real terms he may not have spent all that long at the club, but his death has affected me more than I expected. He didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him, but I feel compelled to make the same statement as did Carlo Ancelotti, Vialli’s former Sampdoria teammate and another effortlessly cool Italian who held the title ‘Chelsea manager’: “Ciao amico mio”.

Gianluca Vialli - 1964-2023

Sarri seems to be the hardest word - part 3

Time's up?

Let me get this out there from the start: there is no shame losing to this particular Manchester City team. I might even claim it’s a badge of honour. But going into yesterday’s game at the Etihad, I wasn’t expecting much, as a Chelsea fan. Not that I don’t have any faith in Chelsea, even given their recent run of away results, but Pep Guardiola is currently custodian of a team that will punish anyone with elan. That doesn’t make them infallible, as they found at home to Crystal Palace before Christmas, but their results against opposition, big and small, have shown a propensity for telephone number scorelines. Which should have put Chelsea on their guard before the abject capitulation at the Etihad.

Before 4 o'clock yesterday I wasn’t even that concerned that I’d be spending the first half listening to radio commentary of City-Chelsea while driving home on the M25. I just didn’t expect to be 4-0 down by the 24th minute. At that point I came close to petulantly switching the radio off, but even then Dion Dublin, BBC 5 Live’s co-commentator with John Murray, was still of the opinion that Chelsea might be able to dam the flow of City goals and restore some pride. I was less positive: scorelines like that rarely get turned around, if ever, and if they do, you wouldn’t get this Manchester City team folding up and switching off. As they showed against Burton Albion, they are decidedly ruthless when on a killing spree. And thus they proved. 6-0.

So, hats off City, I knew you’d beat us. I just didn’t know how painfully you’d do it. Which brings me to Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri’s future. There’s an interesting comparison to make here between the two managers on the touchline yesterday at the Etihad: Guardiola has been given the time, space and resources to create this squad. Chelsea won the Premier League title in Pep’s first season at City, implausibly accelerating away from the chasing pack by Antonio Conte’s tactical switch to a wingback system that caught everyone off their guard. Meanwhile, Guardiola was rebuilding. Down the M64 at Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp was in the midst of doing much the same. Between them, they’ve had two and four years, respectively, to get their teams to where they are now. Will Sarri be afforded the same latitude?

It’s unlikely. Chelsea’s philosophy in the Abramovich era has been consistently short-termist, even if it looked like a slight change of strategy had been adopted with Sarri. If Chelsea would only come out and say that’s how they do it, we’d all accept it. Only the most naive manager would join the club in the expectation of seeing out their career there which, I suppose, is fine. The chances of another Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger putting in double-digit tenures at a Premier League club (or, indeed, anywhere else) are now unlikely, anyway. Again, fine, but in the case of Chelsea, there has been a distinct lag between head coach turnover and squad evolution. The elephant still in the room after yesterday’s horror show in Manchester is that the squad Sarri is playing with, or at least trying to convert to his philosophy, is still rooted in the Mourinho Mark II and Conte group of players. Change seems to be a problem for them. So yesterday’s game, plus the recent pounding from Bournemouth, should be attributed to a combination of Sarri’s unbending view that his possession-based system is the one and only, and that the players can switch off just when they need to dig in and fight. Much is said about Sarri’s lack of a Plan B, and when, yet again, you see like-for-like substitutions being made (though at least Kovačić on for Berkeley came in the 54th minute, rather than the usual 72nd…), and nothing changing in the fundamentals, you wonder if the Italian’s rigid adherence to Plan A will ever shift. Some might even admire his obstinacy, but he’s now starting to look like King Canute.

Sarri’s appointment last July was always going to be a gift to headline writers, which is why this is the third time I've blogged about Chelsea and used the generous pun you see at the top of this page (and thanks, too, to Elton John). Yep, I know it’s lazy, but the Italian is a gift that keeps on giving. His protracted appointment - delayed by Napoli, somewhat childishly, stalling his release while they onboarded former Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti as his replacement - was made just three weeks before the Blues’ first competitive game of the season, the Community Shield, which they lost 2-0 to Manchester City. At the time (and since) Sarri was cut some slack, the line being that it takes time to build a team, to get them to adopt a philosophy. Sarri was appointed largely because of the attractive football he’d instilled in Napoli, which enabled them to keep pace with runaway Serie A leaders Juventus. Six months on, it’s patently clear that what worked at Napoli is not working at Chelsea, what may have fitted the pace of Serie A is not fitting the Premier League.

What is most troubling is that Sarri is starting to exhibit the same truculence that Conte adopted, and that didn’t fair well for the previous Italian in charge at Chelsea. Though not as obvious as Conte became, Sarri’s current demeanour is not the kind that Mr. Abramovich and his acolytes appreciate. But before the inevitable P45 is dispatched Sarri’s way, I seriously hope that Abramovich, his de facto chief executive, Marina Granovskaia, chairman Bruce Buck and the other members of the club’s football board, David Barnard, Guy Laurence and Eugene Tenenbaum, take a good long look at the state of the team. Until yesterday, Chelsea had maintained a top four position in the league, which is probably all that could be expected at this stage of a new head coach's tune with this particular squad. And even when the wheels first fell off, against Spurs in November, they were lashed back on to record wins, including a 2-0 defeat of Manchester City at Stamford Bridge However, the bolts securing those wheels keep shearing. Yes, Chelsea remain in four competitions, but the topography of results that got them to this point is decidedly uneven, perilous even.

Next up will be Malm ö away in the Europa League on Thursday night, then a resurgent Manchester United next Monday in the FA Cup 5th Round, followed by Malmö at home in a second leg, with the run of immediate challenges ending with Manchester City, no less, in the League Cup final at Wembley. Big decisions, then, for the football board at Stamford Bridge. Fire Sarri now (and I wouldn’t expect club legend Gianfranco Zola to remain on the management team, either) and the club enters dangerously familiar territory: the final third of a season with honours on offer, but a caretaker in charge. Yes, that worked a couple of times with Guus Hiddink, Robbie Di Matteo even won the Champions League, and the toxic appointment of Rafa Benitez still netted Chelsea the Europa League trophy. But there’s only so many times Hiddink can be parachuted in, and you don’t see Zidane donning a hazmat suit to join Chelsea for the remaining four months of the season, unless there’s a desire by both him and the club to make it permanent. Plus, it’s just not going to happen, anyway.

However, all this is grist to the mill. Something has to change fundamentally at Chelsea. First up, is the relationship between head coach and the club’s football board. After technical director Michael Emenalo left for Monaco in November 2017, the link between the board and the club’s playing elements disappeared. Marina Granovskaia assumed all control over player acquisitions and divestments. The coach appears to become nothing more than a consultant in the recruitment process (although Sarri managed to persuade the club to bring in his trusted lieutenant Jorginho from Napoli, as well as - finally - Gonzalo Higuain on loan, another player with positive Sarri experience). But that has been all. Questions must also be asked about the state of a squad with access to so much academy talent, and yet no intention of using it. I’ll come back to Callum Hudson-Odoi in a moment.

The lack of true leadership on the pitch is the other major area of concern. Yesterday’s match in Manchester highlighted the absence of blood-and-guts at Chelsea. That was never the case when it had, at its core, leaders like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and Petr Čech, a spine that would take the game by the scruff of its neck when it was needed. As much as I like César Azpilicueta, he’s no Terry, and having been one of Chelsea’s best performers over the last couple of seasons, has not looked as effective this term. That may be down to his captaincy (favoured over the unfavoured Gary Cahill), something that has a habit of diluting ability (once dubbed 'The Botham Effect" after the mullet-haired cricketer's powers wained after he was made England captain in the disastrous 1980 test series with the West Indies).

However, when there are players who need no motivation at all, Sarri doesn't use them. Principally I'm talking about Hudson-Odoi: the precocious 18-year-old may well still need to know his place, but his pace and strength are the very attributes Chelsea have lacked in recent performances. Sarri clearly isn’t sure about the teenager, and with Chelsea managing to ward off Bayern Munich in the transfer window, the club needs to reach agreement on what they do with him. It was almost painful to see the teenager yesterday, not even on the bench but in the seats behind the dugout reserved for squad members who travel but are not on the team sheet. Sarri’s treatment of Hudson-Odoi has been nothing short of scandalous. A player who wants to play, who can play, who can give the fans something to cheer about. And what did Sarri do, once Bayern Munich’s overtures had been conclusively (for now) rebuffed in January? Drop the player for the Bournemouth match on the grounds that he’d only played three days previously. Hudson-Odoi might as well start learning German now, because he’ll be out the transfer window as soon as it opens in the summer.

José Mourinho spent the last four months of his time at Chelsea playing Russian Roulette, almost literally. Then, he was sacked when Chelsea had plummeted from previous season’s league champions to 17th, just above the relegation zone. He was sacked in mid-December when it was still possible he could have turned things around. The Chelsea board didn’t see that as possible, and fielded then-technical director Michael Emenalo to tell the press about the “palpable discord” between manager and players. Today, Chelsea are only in sixth, on points. At any other club, that - and the fact they’re still battling on four fronts - would not set off any alarm bells. Chelsea, however, are not any other club. Sarri, or anyone else, should not think for one minute that Abramovich’s visa or business issues should be a distraction. The next few days - or even the next few hours - could prove to be another disrupting chapter in the recent history of Chelsea Football Club. Sarri would be the expected casualty, but if he does go, serious questions need to be asked about how Chelsea’s boom-and-bust cycle needs to come to an end.

As Leicester win the title, the search for Elvis goes on

The conventional wisdom is that the British don't value success, whereas Americans regard it as an attainment to be revered. We islanders apparently find it all a tad vulgar and would much prefer to wallow in failure. Why else would our favourite film be The Great Escape, the story of a brave but doomed POW breakout? And why else would the England football team's unofficial brass band play the film's theme music incessantly and in unwitting irony in an attempt to stir support during matches?

The same reasoning lies behind our tolerance of Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards, he of the double-glazed spectacles, who truly believed he could fly and became Great Britain's ski jumping hopeful in the 1988 Winter Olympics. At the time (actually, since, too) Britain wasn't exactly a world-beating ski-jumping nation, and Edwards - no sporting failure, by the way - was automatically installed as the underdog. As is the British way, he was obviously unlikely to succeed but gave it it a damn good go. They've now made a movie out of him, too. No doubt the England brass band are learning its score in anticipation of this summer's European championships.

So, while Britain turns its nose up at the desire to be successful, and after a few spins on the pedestal will gleefully find a way to knock off anyone achieving it, we do love an underdog. At Wimbledon we cheer homegrown tennis stars in the face of minuscule chances of them making it to Week 2 (until, of course, Andy Murray comes along and wins it, instantly transmuting himself from "surly Scot" to the greatest Briton since Churchill, Elgar and Henry V). Nearly three-quarters of a century after World War 2 we still watch The Great Escape, The Battle Of Britain and even Dad's Army to remind us of when we were overwhelmingly the underdog. And when we beat nonsensical odds to come out of that period still alive, just.

So what, then, do we now make of Leicester City? Today they are the Barclays Premier League champions. Last season they were nearly relegated from the league itself. At Christmas 2014 they were rock bottom, having only been promoted from the Championship at the end of the previous season, ending a ten-year absence from the top flight. At Christmas 2015 they were on top, and yet at the start of the season bookies would have given you odds of 5000/1 on them actually winning the league. By contrast, you can't get better than 2000/1 for finding Elvis Presley alive.

If ever there was an example of the classic British underdog, Leicester City are it. But more than that. Their success in winning the Premier League with two games to spare is, without succumbing to hyperbole, one of the most remarkable achievements in football and even sporting history. It is hard not sound patronising when describing Leicester's success in such terms, but even their own fans deservedly and raucously celebrating outside the King Power Stadium last night, following Chelsea's tempestous 2-2 draw with Tottenham, were struggling to take it all in. "We're just a small city you've never heard of," said one on Sky News.

When the endearing Claudio Ranieri was appointed Leicester manager, replacing Nigel Pearson after a combustible end to the previous season, there were grave doubts. While he had certainly managed some of Europe's elite sides, including Chelsea, Fiorentina, Atlético Madrid, Juventus, Roma and Inter, it had been without any notable success. His previous appointment, as manager of the Greek national team, lasted barely four months. In his native Italy, Ranieri had endured plenty of critics: football writer Tommaso Pellizzari recently told the Financial Times’ Simon Kuper that Ranieri was “the perfect loser, with a capital L”, adding how “everyone in Italy thought he was very nice, polite, kind, but please never call him to my team”.

Gary Lineker, arguably Leicester’s highest profile supporter, even tweeted "Claudio Ranieri? Really?” on hearing of the Roman’s appointment to the Foxes, later being quoted on BreatheSport.com as saying: "Claudio Ranieri is clearly experienced, but this is an uninspired choice by Leicester. It's amazing how the same old names keep getting a go on the managerial merry-go-round." It’s a missive he now surely regrets, but it would be harsh to single him out entirely. At the beginning of the season numerous pundits had Leicester to be relegated this season, having narrowly missed it before. At the other end of the table, predictions were that this would be a straight back-to-back title for Chelsea, or that Arsenal would finally fulfil their promise. Few - if any - predicted that Spurs would come as close.

That Leicester have confounded the experts is a true testament to the mist of reality that hangs over the Premier League. It's been calculated that Manchester United have spent more on players in the two years that Louis van Gaal has been in charge than in Leicester's entire 132-year history. The gulf in class, they say, between the-now English champions and the usual suspects who "should" win it is enormous.

Jamie Vardy was working in a factory not so long ago, playing non-league football. He was even turned down by Sheffield Wednesday. Sheffield who? Exactly. And today he is the Football Writers' Association Player Of The Year, and there is even talk of a movie about him. Five years ago Riyad Mahrez was in the sixth tier of French football. Last month he was named the PFA's Player Of The Year.

Leicester should probably be named Team Of The Century. Their Premier League victory may have come at the expense of the oligopoly being dismally unable to mount a challenge this year, but they have led from the very beginning. Even allowing for the somewhat phoney war of the opening weeks of the season, Leicester have simply powered through, playing composed, counter-attacking football, with Vardy and Mahrez scoring goals that have been a pleasure to behold, fed by an endeavouring midfield, a sturdy defence and, in Kasper Schmeichel, a world-class goalkeeper to-be.

The more expensively-assembled elite will, when they carry out their season reviews, have to look at Leicester and think hard about how they did it, especially given the meagre funds the club has at its disposal (Leicester's starting line-up on the opening day of the season represented an investment of less than £16 million; by comparison, last summer Manchester City spent £49m on Raheem Sterling alone). However you look at it, this has been a remarkable season in the Premier League.

It’s not that Leicester have merely benefited from Manchesters United and City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea not being at the races - they have simply been better. With the exception of Tottenham – who have been largely excellent (words I, as a Chelsea fan, struggle to type) – Leicester have outclassed the so-called big-guns: United and City have been beset by their own misfortune – the existing manager in United’s case, the effect of announcing a new one in City’s; Arsenal promised big yet again, and faded by January yet again; Liverpool are still building under Jürgen Klopp, but as Sunday’s Swansea game demonstrated there’s still work to be done there; and Chelsea… Well let’s just look forward to a new season and a new manager, shall we?

Picture: Leicester Mercury

Hopefully they will all conclude that what Leicester have - and they are lacking - is simply the chemistry. And credit for that must go to Ranieri. Look back over the season - the pizza nights for his players, the quiet, dignified man in interviews, none of the histrionics or negativity of his principal rivals. Prior to Leicester, his managerial record wasn’t all bad. He took Sardinian side Cagliari from Italy’s Serie C1 to Serie A in successive seasons, introduced Gianfranco Zola at Napoli, won top flight promotion for Fiorentina plus the the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana, and took Valencia to Champions League qualification for the first time. After a disastrous spell at Atlético (a club in dire financial peril at the time) he joined Chelsea, building the foundations of the team that José Mourinho would eventually win successive Premier League titles with, as well as signing Frank Lampard and promoting John Terry to central defence. Sure, there were some eccentric performances before he was sacked by Roman Abramovich who bought the club in 2003, and at times the label ‘Tinkerman’ was well deserved. But Ranieri guided the club to its most promising seasons in decades, reaching a Champions League semi-final and knocking out Arsenal along the way. And when the ‘dead man walking’ was eventually fired, Chelsea were in second place in the Premier League.

That Ranieri should have returned to England to manage Leicester after journeying through Europe was seen as an opportunity to complete unfinished business. No one, though, not even the most glass-half-full Leicester fan, could have expected that to mean where the team have ended up. Not even Ranieri: "I never expected this when I arrived," he said in a statement last night. "I’m a pragmatic man, I just wanted to win match after match and help my players to improve week after week. Never did I think too much about where it would take us. The players have been fantastic. Their focus, their determination, their spirit has made this possible. Every game they fight for each other and I love to see this in my players. They deserve to be champions." And they do.

In today's papers, on television last night, in radio phone-ins and all over Twitter, the somewhat condescending phrase “against the odds” has been everywhere. Their Premier League title success, as unlikely as it has been, has not simply been a remake of Cool Runnings. Leicester may not have the wealth of the teams below them, but they're not paupers either. But their underdog status has not been about money, anyway. Their victory has been about a team that isn't one of the so-called "elite" winning it.

Ranieri’s side has shown a refreshing passion, unity and discipline that their rivals, save for Spurs, haven’t. They’ve soaked up the pressure. Some might even say they’ve played pure football. In Vardy they’ve had a player who has even given England fans something to think about as we head towards the Euros in France. In Mahrez, we’ve seen someone to create excitement every time he steps on the pedal. And in Wes Morgan, we’ve seen a true captain’s captain. Captain Morgan - yeah. But most of all, we have seen in Claudio Ranieri a dignified manager who, at 64, has finally achieved premium silverware, and on his terms, too.

It is a fairy tale, and why not? Are we so embittered and cynical in football that only an established order must prevail? Of course not. As I’ve written so many times before, football is an archly tribal sport, but it has been a long time – probably going back to Newcastle under Kevin Keegan – that an entire nation has united to will a team to victory. I can’t even remember the last time a team attracted so much interest from the foreign media before. Even the Americans can pronounce "Leicester" properly now. Feelgood story of the year, eh?

Behind blue eyes - Ciao Antonio, come stai?

The last time anything took as long as the appointment, confirmed today, of Antonio Conte as Chelsea's new manager was, possibly, the tectonic movement that formed the continents.

For almost as long as there has been the vacancy at Stamford Bridge, following José Mourinho's sacking in December, the 46-year-old with frankly scarily ice-blue eyes has been in the frame to become Roman Abramovich's next club manager, although unrealistically Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone were higher up the short-list.

Of course, Conte still has the trifling job of managing Italy's progress through the European Championships this summer before he takes over at Chelsea, but when he does he will have his work cut out and then some. Even with his pedigree - 400 midfield appearances for Juventus, winning five Serie A titles and the Champions League with them, and then winning the domestic title for Juve in his first season as manager of the Bianconeri (and two more Scudetti in each season thereafter) - the task of rewiring Chelsea to be both a Premier League and a European contender once more will be huge.

I say "rewire" as the job in hand isn't necessarily about reconstruction. Many, if not most, Chelsea fans will say that now is the chance to rebuild the club around the exciting youth prospects that exist, including those in the trophy-gathering Under-18 and Under-21 teams, as well as those expensively cast out on loan in Europe, their futures uncertain. As Tottenham's Mauricio Pochettino and even - gasp! - Louis van Gaal have shown, young prospects can convert hunger and prospect into excitement and results.

Quite why Chelsea have acquired so many young players and, under successive managers including Mourinho and even 'Uncle' Guus Hiddink, not played them at all or very little, has been baffling. Unless the club academy responsible for their development, or the executives responsible for signing them, simply haven't delivered the goods, in which case they should be sacked at the earliest opportunity.

The second scenario is that Conte may just want to hang on to the players that have been part of this, Chelsea's worst season, relatively speaking, in many years. Athletico Madrid want Diego Costa to return, and the Brazillian-turned-Spaniard's easily combustible nature has suggested that he hasn't settled in London. Conte, though, apparently sees him as the ideal spearhead, and there's no doubt that when Costa is focused on simply being the best goal hanger on the pitch, he can still do a fearful job for Chelsea.

And then Eden Hazard. Player of the season one minute, embarassing refusenik the next. Conte is said to have told people that he will wait until he's fully on board at Chelsea before speaking to the mercurial Belgian, but if body language counts as 90% of all communication, Hazard is already on his way to Paris or Real Madrid, his dream destination. It would be a supreme loss of talent - Chelsea were right to sign him up to an extremely lucrative deal - but when the head's gone, the body follows soon after, and that seems to have been the case this season, from the moment he scuffed a keeper-to-beat opportunity against Petr Čech in the Community Shield at Wembley, and when he went down injured the following week at Stamford Bridge, sparking the whole Mourinho-Carneiro hoo-ha. His season has been unbelievably poor ever since.

The other player Conte should give significant thought to ejecting is Thibault Courtois. He was the much-exalted successor to Čech, who kept him out on loan at Athletico because the Czech stopper was - and still is - that good. Like his fellow Belgian, though, Courtois' head seems to have been turned by interest from elsewhere. But the truth is that he hasn't consistently demonstrated that he is as good as Čech was, if ever, if I was to be brutal. Indeed Asmir Begovic, who covered for Courtois in the early weeks of this season, showed that he was equally up to the task. Having two top-quality No.1s is never ideal, from a player management point of view, but Begovic has maintained his dignity and fan respect since Courtois returned from injury before Christmas. Perhaps Chelsea could cash in...and pick up a bargain like Southampton's Fraser Forster as a result?

Conte will have other issues to consider: one of the most pressing is in central defence. John Terry is unlikely to receive a new playing-only contract, but could he be persuaded to stay on in a player-coach capacity? Some believe that Chelsea should cut their losses altogether with Terry, and adopt a new-coach, new-era approach, and there is some credence to this. Traditionalists, though, will see that keeping Terry and his natural leadership around could be valuable for a young squad looking for icons - of which he is about the only one left - at the club. One thing is certain, Conte keeping Terry would certainly not be a simple issue of age. "There is no young and old, only victory or failure," he told Tuttosport last year, sounding an awful lot like Robert Duvall's Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.

But what, too, of Gary Cahill - who plays worse the less Terry appears - and the criminally inconsistent Oscar. And Matic - who has stubbornly failed to regain his 2014-15 form - and Loic Remy, who has been pushed so far out to the fringes that it would be best for all concerned for him to move on.

That would leave Conte with the likes of Willian - the only real candidate for player of the season this term and also a player who would definitely fit the Conte mould - plus Branislav Ivanovic (himself no spring chicken), the promising Betrand Traore, Kenedy, Kurt Zuma when fit, the dependable Cesar Azpilicueta, young American Matt Miazga, Cesc Fabregas as a new permanent captain, and the still-to-be-polished diamond that is Ruben Loftus-Cheek. With the wealth of talent out on loan, such as Nathan Ake, Marco van Ginkel, Nathan Chalobah, Dominic Solanke and Isiah Brown, plus a few marquee signings (forget Pogba, but why not Cavani?), and Conte has the potential for a young, lively and - most important of all - unpredictable team.

One of Mourinho's failings was his lack of variety. Once opposing teams figured out how to shut down Hazard or crowd out Costa they exploited Chelsea's predictability, who failed to have a plan B ready. Thus there was little squad rotation, little change from 4-3-3 and little chance of fringe and youth players getting a chance, all of which surely added to the team's mental and physical collapse and their season's success being measured only by how they avoided relegation.

Not that Chelsea's still-bruised and battered stars can expect any respite from Conte: by reputation he is an unrelenting taskmaster who built his own playing career on hard graft and has come to expect the same of anyone playing for him. Perhaps that might prove too much for some at the Bridge, though Chelsea won't want to see a repetition of this season's abject collapse until Hiddink's brand of Dutch lassez-faire restored confidence. And the results have clearly followed.

Life under Conte will not necessarily be any more comfortable than they were under Mourinho. In his autobiography, former Juve star Andrea Pirlo recalls how Conte had a volcanic temper, describing dressing rooms filled with flying water bottles and even stronger invective when things weren't going well: "When he talks, his words assault you," Pirlo describes his former coach poetically. "They crash through your mind, often quite violently, and settle deep within."

Regardless of how the azzuri do in France this summer, it's clear that Antonio Conte will join Chelsea with a history of success for a manager who is still only in his mid-40s. Even with some residual reputational baggage hanging over him from the ten-month ban he received during his time as coach of Siena (he was charged with failing to report a match-fixing attempt - which he strenously denied), the Premier League is a vastly different place to Serie A. That may not be a concern to Conte from a physical point of view, but it will inevitably inform his tactical outlook, and obviously the choice of players he might ask Marina Granovskaia and Michael Emenalo to deliver (though he shouldn't hold his breath if the experience - and latterly barely concealed frustration - of Mourinho last summer is anything to go by).

Ultimately it will be Roman Abramovich himself who will have to accept that no matter Conte's history, the 2016-17 season will be a relatively fallow one, especially without any European involvement (unless a Europa League comes unexpectedly good in the next month). Abramovich might, to some degree, shoulder some blame for Chelsea's state this season (though given his remarkable benevolence and genuine enthusiasm - take note, R. Lerner... - it would be hard to go further than that), as he appointed Granovskaia and Emenalo to their posts as, respectively, executive in charge of player acquisitions and technical director. These appointments have led to the ridiculous state of affairs of more than 30 players out on loan and the abysmal transfer deadline day grab of soon-to-be-forgotten players last September.

Conte will have to deal with that haphazard mechanism above and aside him. He might ask for Pogba, just as Mourinho did, but it will be a wonder if such a player can be lured to a club which is hardly one of Europe's giants (even if it thinks it is) and most probably will only be focused next season on domestic honours.

One thing, however, is certain about Conte joining Chelsea: the club has benefitted immensely from its recent history of Italians. Even now I can't believe that the Chelsea of 1996 was able to sign the gentlemanly Luca Vialli, soon after he lifted the European Cup as Juventus captain; and I still revel in every twist and turn that I saw Gianfranco Zola put in during his mesmerising spell at the club.

Italy and everything Italian suddenly became cool again in London (as it had been in the Mod era of the 60s). Not that long after Italia 90, the arrivals of these Italians, and those who'd played in Italy like Ruud Gullitt, may have come towards the end of their playing carreers, but to this Chelsea fan and committed Italianophile, they marked the end of a period of moribundity at the Bridge. All of a sudden, a club that had history but little to show for it, had panache and style, on the pitch and off. Even Roberto di Matteo's restaurant, La Perla, was an exquisite dining experience.

Conte will become the fifth Italian to manage Chelsea, and the sixth to have managed in Italy, if you include Mourinho's spell at Inter. The expectation for success will come from Abramovich alone: his acquisition of Chelsea in 2003 was, it is believed, in order to create an English version of AC Milan, complete with Andrei Schevchenko and a rumoured attempt then to lure Carlo Ancelotti away from the San Siro. That he eventually did, with the arch-eyebrowed one winning the Premier League title, the FA Cup and the Community Shield in his first season in charge, 2009-2010. Vialli became player-manager, winning the FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup and UEFA Super Cup, while di Matteo 'just' won the Champions League. And Claudio Ranieri? I believe he is now at a club called Leicester City.

Benvenuti, Antonio, e buona fortuna.