The public rift between Roma’s coach and manager brought to light a background story about last summer. Here is who was contacted and did not accept the Giallorossi’s court.
The public rift between Claudio Ranieri and Gian Piero Gasperini has brought to light cracks that have been shaking the corridors of Trigoria for monthsat least according to those in the know. Even if, as the coach said, trying to tone it down, there were no strong disagreements between the coach and the senior advisor of the Friedkin ownership, it is clear that Roma was going through annoying fibrillations in the heart of winter.
A situation that is not very functional for a team engaged in the sprint to win a place in the next Champions League, but above all destined to call everything into question. Even the future. Because imagining that the harshness of Ranieri’s statements, after weeks of press conferences being clarified by Gasperini, can be overcome as if nothing had happened is pure utopia.
In Ranieri’s outburst a few minutes before the kick-off of the match against Pisa there is a passage, however, which sparked the curiosity of Roma fans. Was Gasperini really the fourth choice last summer, when the Giallorossi club was looking for a coach for this season? And if it was the fourth and not the first choice, who are the three coaches that Ranieri claims to have been contacted but who did not agree to reach the capital?
Ranieri and the coaches before Gasperini: what he said
Ranieri’s words leave no room or interpretations: “I chose 5-6 coaches, three didn’t come. The club chose Gasperini. We chose him for what he had done at Atalanta: starting with the young players and slowly bringing them to the big stages. I stopped training for this reason, if we have to lose a year of construction I’ll gladly do it. We expected exactly this: we took some young players, Gasperini and I chose the players.”
Aside from the detail of blaming the club for the final decision to go for Gasperini, the man to whom the Friedkins entrusted the construction of Roma’s new cycle explained that he had contacted a large roster of technicians but that half of that roster preferred not to make themselves available. An certainly unflattering scenario for Gasperini who preferred, however, to avoid answering directly: “These are normal things, clubs create profiles in these situations, but I’m happy with the choice I made.”
The three coaches who did not accept Roma
So who are the three coaches who did not respond to the call from Ranieri and Roma? One is known and goes by the name of Cesc Fabregaswho in the spring was courted by the Giallorossi and who declined as happened in June when Inter attempted the blitz, flying to London to try to convince him to leave the Hartono project. Fabregas who in recent months had also been on the Bayer Leverkusen short list, but who temporarily married Como also due to the extensive powers with which he was endowed by the owners both in directing the rich market and in the daily management of everything that revolves around the team and youth sector.
The second name is that of Ernesto Valverdeborn in 1994, on the bench of Athletic Bilbao from 2022. He is the coach to whom Ranieri, caught by the cameras, had given a note at the end of last season’s Europa League match. The then Roma manager explained that he had written his mobile number to him, having lost that of the Spaniard, so that he could contact him to talk about some players; today it is not difficult to imagine that he was already thinking about the future of the Roma bench.
And the third? There are two tracks that lead one abroad and the other to Italy. The foreign one goes by the name of Unai Emerycurrently at Aston Villa with whom he is chasing the fifth Europa League of a winning career especially in Europe. Roma have liked him for a long time but there has never been the possibility of starting a real negotiation. For weeks, however, there had also been talk of contacts with Roberto De Zerbiat the time at Marseille and now at Tottenham after having closed in a stormy manner with the French.
