"Guys, if the problem is me, I'm ready to step aside." It was not a more or less veiled proposal for resignation that Claudio Ranieri made in front of the team, after Cagliari's 3-1 defeat at home against Lazio, the fourth consecutive defeat. The coach's perhaps intended to be a demonstration of an assumption of responsibility in front of the group.
His boys said no: mister, that would have been the answer, we must all examine our consciences together. And all together move forward.
Whether this exchange took place last night or this morning - it is not yet clear - matters little. What remains is that the players, all of them, rallied around the coach who took them from B to A, with a ride that culminated in the Epic at San Nicola.
The signals sent by president Tommaso Giulini remain, who in the press room at the Domus, immediately, broke a silence that had lasted since the day of relegation, after the match against Venezia: the rossoblù boss on one side armored Ranieri ("We're going forward with him"), on the other hand he underlined that he had accepted all the market requests made to him. As if to say: I did mine, if it doesn't work it's not the company's fault.
E. Fr.