Claudio Ranieri Grande Ufficiale OMRI (Italian: ; born 20 October 1951) is an Italian football coach and former player who was most recently head coach of Serie A club Roma.
Ranieri began his managerial career in the lower leagues in Italy during the late 1980s, and made his name at Cagliari, whom he took from Serie C1 up to Serie A in successive seasons. He later went on to manage Napoli, where he led the team to qualify for the UEFA Cup, only to be dismissed the following season. In 1993, he joined Fiorentina, and immediately led them to Serie A promotion, also winning the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana in 1996, before moving to Spain in 1997, to manage Valencia and then Atlético Madrid. With Valencia, he won a Copa del Rey and an UEFA Intertoto Cup, and helped the club to qualify for the UEFA Champions League. In 2000, Ranieri moved to England to become head coach at Chelsea. His four seasons there saw Chelsea improve their points total season on season, with them finishing runners-up in 2004 and reaching the UEFA Champions League semi-final the same season. He was dismissed by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich that May, but a number of players he signed and brought through during his time at Stamford Bridge formed the core of the side that went on to achieve domestic and international success in subsequent seasons.