Miracle-worker coach Claudio Ranieri called in to rescue Sampdoria

Claudio Ranieri has once again been brought in to help fix a faltering club. Can he pull off another miracle and lead Sampdoria to safety by season’s end?

This is the part of the season where managers are shown the boot. In Italy, a country shaped like one, coaches are often shown the door early on in the season following just a few defeats.

Serie A has already seen two managers sacked. First, AC Milan fired Marco Giampaolo after just four months. That was followed by Sampdoria’s sacking of Eusebio Di Francesco after he lost six of the team’s first seven games. Like Giampaolo, Di Francesco had been hired over the summer.

Sampdoria has been rooted at the bottom of the standings all season. This is a team that last won the league title in 1991 when superstars like Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Mancini spearheaded the attack. That remains the only scudetto the club has ever won. Since then, the club has been relegated twice (in 2000 and again in 2012). It has mostly been a mid-table team through the past two decades.

The team once again finds itself on the brink of another relegation. That’s where Claudio Ranieri comes in. Ranieri is known as a miracle worker. He has managed 17 different clubs since 1986. Sampdoria, his 18th, could be his biggest challenge to date.

Ranieri is a manager who loves a challenge. And Sampdoria will be a challenge.

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Heading into this weekend, the Genoa-based side was in last place with just three points. Luckily for Sampdoria, there are currently six other teams mired in the drop zone. With only three relegating at the end of the season, Sampdoria still have a fighting chance given that there are seven months left in the season.

Nicknamed “Tinkerman” for always changing lineup, the 67-year-old Ranieri may be known most for coaching Leicester to a Premier League title in 2016, a year after the team had narrowly avoided relegation. For every success, however, also comes some failure. Ranieri is hoping history won’t repeat itself.

Fulham was also in last placer in the Premier League when Ranieri took over as manager in November 2018. He was fired after winning just three of his 17 matches.

“Sampdoria are not Fulham. Don’t forget, Fulham were a newly promoted club with players who had never been in the Premier League,” Ranieri told reporters last week during his first news conference as Sampdoria manager. “In the January transfer window, they followed the advice of algorithms. This is totally different. Sampdoria have played good football and are struggling, so now need the desire to fight hard.”

On Sunday, Sampdoria hosted fifth-place Roma, a team Ranieri has coached and also cheered on as a fan since he was also born in the Italian capitol. In the end, it was a scoreless draw that bodes well for Sampdoria, although the match was marred by racist chants.

Although it was an emotional game for all at the Stadio Ferraris, it was just the beginning of a very long journey for Ranieri and his players. It’s anyone’s guess whether Ranieri can pull off another miracle or if the Fulham nightmare will repeat itself this season.