Ranieri. The Tinkerman. And Sissoko, the erstwhile defensive midfielder.Now fate has combined to bring them together. For £8.2 million.
Momo made his first senior appearances for Valencia when Rafa was at the helm and subsequently followed him to Liverpool becoming an anchor in midfield, the new Patrick Vieira with the disciplinary problems to match. His career gathered pace until he suffered an unfortunate eye injury in match where he was kicked in the head by Benfica player, Beto, in February 2006 but returned sporting Edgar Davids style goggles.
Unfortunately for Liverpool, Sissoko has since only looked half the player since that incident. His passing is woeful, way below the standard one would expect at that level. His overall game has also gone backwards, and now looks like a slightly better version of Djemba Djemba. In truth he hasn't been helped by Javier Mascherano's arrival at Anfield, meaning he has been 'rotated' to within an inch of his life by Rafa and is now off to Juve, only 6 months after signing a 4 year contract.
Claudio's career has followed a similar pattern. He earned plaudits early on for leading Cagliari to Serie A from Serie C1 (88-91), and getting Fiorentina promoted and winning the Coppa Italia in 1996. Joining Valencia he laid the groundwork for their future success with some canny signings and youth development and arrived in England (via Atletico Madrid) to take charge of Chelsea.
Just like Sissoko, Ranieri settled quickly, with probably his best achievement being finishing 4th in the League in 2003, despite having Sam Dalla Bona and Enrique Lucas, an even more ineffective version of Jesper Gronkjaer, in the team.
Roman Abramovich took over and despite some progress in the league cups, it was ultimately failure for a man who splashed an initial £120m that summer. In his last season, Claudio got it spectacularly wrong in the CL semi-final second leg against Monaco.
Ranieri went onto to fail at Valencia by taking Rafa Benitez's double winning team (league and Uefa Cup) buying crap players, losing loads of games and getting the sack in Feb 2005. He and Giuseppe Rossi kept Parma in Serie A in 2007 and he somehow wound up replacing Deschamps at Juve last summer.
So now Momo & Claudio are together, dreaming of better days together after their ultimately unsuccessful England stints. Claudio is on his last chance at a big club, and the way Momo is regressing, this could be his last chance too. With Agnelli's millions, Claudio has every chance of success, while Sissoko only has Tiago as competition for defensive midfield chopper. Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship?
Mark,
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