Speaking on “Di tutto un po’dcast”, the former Cagliari goalkeeper Simone Aresti He talked about many things including that famous Cagliari-Lazio match at the end of which mister Ranieri resigned. His words, reported by Tuttocagliari.net: “What was said is true: the coach resigned while talking to us. But then the captain intervened and said that the whole team thought that without Ranieri they would not have survived. Are you 100% sure of that? Because he was the one who united everything, even the support of the fans. He was the link between everything at that moment, certainly also an important shield. But at that moment, without the coach, we would not have made it. There was this clarification: he said he would resign at the end of the match. The captain replied: “Coach, or with you we want to be relegated, but we go and wage war on everyone”.
We talked to each other, we were all on the same wavelength. This is beautiful, perhaps it had never happened to me. Usually, if a coach resigns, he says “goodbye and thank you”, the team lowers its head. There are those who don’t play and perhaps hope to find more space with a new coach. But at that moment we were all decided: either with Ranieri or nothing. It was something shared by everyone. Maybe that Cagliari wasn’t playing badly in those games, but the results weren’t coming. They were difficult games, but the commitment had always been there. The coach wanted to bring out something more, and he succeeded, because then we put the big teams under pressure: crazy results, almost winning in Milan with Inter, drawing with Juve at home due to an own goal, winning with Atalanta who had to win by force.
The coach wouldn’t have left there if he hadn’t returned to being our coach. He was determined to resign because he thought it was the right solution for our good, but we knew that the right solution was to unite and consolidate. When he arrived, he talked, laughed and joked. I was always embarrassed, because when you see legends like Gigi Riva and Claudio Ranieri, you always remain like that. I’ve always had this incredible embarrassment with the coach, but I’ve always seen and described him as what he later revealed himself to be: an authentic person, without masks. When it’s time to get angry, he gets angry, and everyone shuts up. He has a great personality, but his greatest quality is that he always says the right words at the right time. You think: but how the hell does he do it? I’ve probably never gotten over the embarrassment, I’ve never managed to tell the coach a joke while he was making one and I was laughing. I still get embarrassed now, if I saw him again I’d be embarrassed. For me Ranieri will always be Ranieri, and having lived him made me admire him even more than what people told me.”