CLAUDIO RANIERI REVEALED on Monday he had been “terribly shaken” by the death of Leicester City boss Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
Ranieri, 66, was hired by Vichai in 2015 and led Leicester to their historic Premier League title success the following year.
Billionaire Vichai, 60, died along with four others when his helicopter plummeted into a car park outside the King Power stadium shortly after his side’s 1-1 draw with West Ham on Saturday.
“I was terribly shaken by the news,” Ranieri told Sky Sport Italia in his first public reaction since the tragedy.
He was a good man and always had a positive word for everyone. His positivity and ability to make everybody love him was clear for all to see. He came into the locker room only to dispense kind words, never to reproach you.
“One time soon after my birthday, he arrived in the locker room with a huge cake and made everyone sing ‘Happy Birthday.’
“He was an illuminated man and everything he touched became better.”
Ranieri said it was now up to Vichai’s son “who has always been in love with football” to carry on in his father’s footsteps.
He recalled his first meeting with Vichai.
“I immediately thought he was a positive person, full of energy. My objective when I arrived at Leicester was to secure Premier League safety, then we all know what happened.
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha made a very important contribution to the Premier League victory, as he’d arrive 30 minutes before the game to embrace everyone. He never said a word out of turn, was always happy with a smile on his face.
“I am so sad right now, I want to join the family in their grief.”
After Ranieri was sacked by Leicester in February 2017 he took charge of French Ligue 1 side Nantes for the 2017-2018 season.
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And long may it last.
As a result of UFC spin and brainwashing the regular punter is led to believe that once these fighters have performed well in the UFC then they are the real deal. Whilst if you look beyond the propaganda that they over load us, where they portray an average fighter to be a world beater, you’ll see that there are many other excellent fighters in different organisations such as the ones mentioned above.
David if you understand mma and martial arts, judging from your inarticulate comment you might not, you will understand that’s it’s not the fact that these fighters, namely mcgregor and Duffy, won but it’s the style in which they won. They quickly and effectively walked down or knocked out opponents in a short space of time. I don’t think anyone is singing paddy Houlihan, Cathal Pendred or Seary’s praises as highly as the other two but we know these Irish lads have more work to do and we support them because they are athletes that work hard at their craft which is more than can be said about the unintelligible bile coming from your mouth.
“Only six countries have ever been home to a UFC champion, and this small island is a few months away from being the seventh”
Let’s not get too hasty!!!
That’s obviously not meant to be an assumption of victory, merely a statement that we COULD have a UFC champion in a few months. Hopefully I haven’t upset Jose Aldo to the extent that he’ll have this article pinned to his fridge until July.
Six countries? That’s a mad stat. Poland, Brazil, USA, Canada, Belarus, Netherlands. That it?