Romance and revenge in Italy

Posted Sunday, April 18, 2010 by theguardian.com

Roma, Claudio Ranieri and José Mourinho: romance and revenge in Italy
In a story of north v south and hero v Mourinho, Roma's Claudio Ranieri is on the verge of an extraordinary triumph

Romance and revenge in Italy
Claudio Ranieri has tried to remain calm as the Italian media try to hype up his differences with Inter's coach, Jose Mourinho.

It must have come as a blessed relief for Fabio Capello to be quizzed last week about footballing matters rather broader than the life and times of Wayne Rooney. The subject matter that caught his imagination was the jostling for position at the head of Serie A. Gripping it is, too. Earlier in the season the bookmakers were offering derisory odds of 300-1 on Roma winning the title. Last week, Claudio Ranieri's team hurdled Internazionale to go top with five games to go. This is an unfolding drama with a thick plot – the grudge between the two competing coaches who could hardly be a better fit for the good guy/bad guy stereotype as far as Italians are concerned, and the north/south divide that has always fuelled conspiracies in calcio cranks up the tension. Lovers of Italian football are enthralled.

"I would give an Oscar to Roma and Ranieri," said Capello. "They are doing something extraordinary, something unthinkable when they were 14 points back." They have not lost for 23 games. That is some push after a spluttering start that included four defeats in their opening nine league fixtures. "Of course, when you think about how we started and where we are now it seems unreal," said the captain, Francesco Totti. "But we've earned top spot on the field through sacrifice and team spirit and we've never given up."

With Internazionale's dominance unbroken and seemingly untouchable since they were awarded the 2006 title when it was stripped from Juventus, it does wonders for the Italian game to at least have the prospect of change. Internazionale wrested top spot back on Friday night with a win over Juventus, so all eyes now home in on the Eternal City for a response. Roma play their neighbours Lazio this evening in what promises to be a hostile occasion at the Stadio Olimpico (it is Lazio's "home" derby). This has the feeling of the crunch fixture for Ranieri's men. If they can seize all three points, the run-in looks reasonable and they will be favourites to see an extraordinary mission through. As Ranieri so evocatively put it: "Inter can feel our breath on their necks and now we've got to sink our teeth in."

The catchphrase among Roma fans is all about keeping their emotions under their hats until it is time to hurl everything up in the air. "Nun succede … ma se succede!" It won't happen … but if it happens!

This is arguably the moment Ranieri has been building towards his entire career. Various strands are coming together. The dissonant relationship with Internazionale's unpopular coach José Mourinho, who was his successor at Chelsea, has been something he has never welcomed and has tried to bear calmly. To triumph at his expense – and against all probability given the resources each has to work with – would be the most serene answer imaginable.

Although he is not by nature a point-prover, it would also be satisfying to show Juventus that the problems he encountered in Turin last season were not necessarily about him, and that perhaps the issue was them. As evidence, Juventus are struggling to finish in the top four while Ranieri eyes the big prize. Above all, the man is a fiercely proud Roman, a boyhood supporter of the club, and this title would represent his most meaningful achievement by far. "It is," observed the commentator Pierluigi Pardo, "a tale of romance and revenge." Capello was Roma's coach the last time they conquered Serie A. That was nine seasons ago.

Scanning Europe's leagues in the run-up to this weekend, it is a common theme to find a club at the top who have had to wait for their shot at their domestic prize. In Holland, Steve McClaren's FC Twente have never won their league. Nor have Bursaspor in Turkey (and if they do they will be the first club from outside the big four ever to break their stranglehold). Young Boys have not finished top of the Swiss league for 24 years. Marseille have spent 18 years trying to regain the French title they dominated with the help of their win-at-all-costs owner Bernard Tapie.

In Greece, Panathinaikos have wrapped up their championship after six seasons out of reach of the trophy, and in Portugal Benfica should seal their first title for five years. It puts into perspective the situation for the Premier League's leaders. Chelsea's three-season hiatus does not look as frustratingly protracted as they would have us believe.

Like Roma, the Marseille story has elements of romance and revenge. Although it is hard for anybody outside the Stade Vélodrome to feel too much sympathy for their wilderness years, considering the match-fixing scandal that sent them there in the first place, fans of the club known as L'OM feel they have suffered enough.

Having been the kings of France and rulers of Europe in a period that culminated in their Champions League victory of 1993, they endured 17 years without a single trophy after Tapie's regime came tumbling down.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus was the man who took up the challenge to rebuild L'OM. Here was a man whose colourful life started when he was famed for his poker-playing while still at school. He was involved in Israel's Six Day War, was rumoured to have dated Kim Basinger, and was known in Germany as Mr Adidas when he ran and revived the company. The Franco-Swiss billionaire, who smoked a cigar and drove a Smart car, was known as a Don Juan figure who liked to seek out businesses in distress.

Marseille was an intriguing prospect for him. He poured approximately €200m (£176m) into the club, went through 19 coaches, and became implicated in a scandal over irregular payments to players, but despite everything he threw at it success eluded him.

L'OM hoisted their first 21st-century honour in March. They won the League Cup by defeating the champions Bordeaux. Louis-Dreyfus, who suffered a long battle with leukaemia, did not live to see the day. The former president, who had been barracked by fans during his time in charge, has now been recast as a romantic hero. They cried for him. They sang for him. The club have renamed their training ground in his honour.

The team and management he put together seems to be on the verge of some kind of redemption. Considering the mayhem that accompanied the open-top bus parade down by the port and outside the town hall just for the League Cup, they can barely imagine what awaits should they win something more significant. Even though Lyon and Bordeaux stole the international limelight for France this season, L'OM are easily the most popular club in France. They share with Manchester United and Juventus the ability to reach out to fans all over the country. They have the best attendances and the biggest television audiences.

What they have seen this season is the evolution of a team tweaked by coach Didier Deschamps to bring some of his customary winning mentality and aggressive pressing to the party. Timely it is too, given the European distractions that have taken their toll on Lyon and Bordeaux. L'OM fight hard to win the ball, and then move it quickly to their sharp front men.

The key to it all is the clever Argentinian passing machine, Lucho González, brought in for a club-record £18m last summer. He had a desperate start to his Marseille career, missing months with injury and struggling for a few weeks with rustiness. Now he is masterful.

Like Roma, Marseille had a troubled start to the season. La Provence, the local paper, wrote of "laughing" at the idea of a title challenge as recently as January, when the club last lost in the league. Since then they have collected 32 points out of a possible 36. The force seems to be with them. As Deschamps says: "We want to go as far as possible. There is nothing better than first place."