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Ranieri lifts lid on title dream
- Updated: December 24, 2016
Supreme confidence, borne out of defeat. Claudio Ranieri says he first believed Leicester City were capable of winning the Premier League on Valentine’s Day, when his team had just lost 2-1 against Arsenal at the Emirates.
Speaking exclusively to Sky Sports News HQ to review the football year, Ranieri said 2016 was the best year of his life, and fulfilled an ambition he had held for over 30 years.
“I’ve never won a title, and so for this reason [it] is the best,” Ranieri said.
“But also I can’t forget when I start because I start like Jamie Vardy – Fleetwood Town – a non-league team, and slowly slowly, I climb all the categories. And if after 30 years I win the title, that means I work so hard, so for that reason I am very, very pleased.”
Leicester lost only three games all season, going on to win the Premier League by 10 points. But strangely it was in that moment of defeat in North London in February, when Ranieri first believed his players could be champions.
“Myself, when we play against Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool. The whole world is waiting for us to lose the matches, and we are finished. But we won at City. And I say ‘Oh! What a performance’. And we won against Liverpool. And we lost at Arsenal. But Arsenal, 11 against 10, and they need 95 minutes to beat us. I said to myself then: ‘Oh! Maybe we will go very high’.”
Ranieri has spoken before of the very strong bond within …
