Before Leicester, Ranieri’s brush with glory with his beloved Roma

Claudio Ranieri won the hearts of the football world when he took Leicester City to the 2016 Premier League title, but six years earlier he came within touching distance of an even more romantic achievement — a league title with his boyhood team Roma.

Ranieri, who on Thursday came out of retirement to coach Roma for a third time, took over a side with no points in the early stages of the 2009-10 Serie A season, but after a slow start led the Giallorossi to a 24-match unbeaten run that left them at the summit in Italy with four matches left.

However a tidal wave of emotion came crashing down in one of the most dramatic matches in recent Serie A history, a 2-1 home defeat to Sampdoria which effectively handed Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan the title and the chance to complete a now famous league, Italian Cup and Champions League treble.

The loss, and Inter’s 3-1 defeat of Atalanta the previous day, put Mourinho’s team two points ahead with three games remaining, a lead that the future European champions would not relinquish.

The match was held at a balmy Stadio Olimpico in Rome and was the last real contest facing Ranieri’s team, against an entertaining Samp side featuring Antonio Cassano chasing down a Champions League place.

– Traumatic –

A volcanic opening 45 minutes strengthened the feeling that Ranieri was about to ram Mourinho’s insults — he had called his fellow former Chelsea boss a serial loser and mocked his English — back down the Portuguese’s throat, as Francesco Totti swept the hosts in front early on and continued to pull the strings in a dominating display.

However Samp boss Gigi Delneri switched things up at half-time and the tide turned. The first half’s missed chances came back to bite Roma and a clinical Giampaolo