Claudio Ranieri says Leicester trio Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante are like his "sons"

KampusbeT  ~  " Claudio Ranieri says Leicester trio Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante are like his "sons" "

Agen Bola Terpercaya EURO 2016  ~   As the world’s media descended on the King Power Stadium, Claudio Ranieri was asked whether he would be immortalised in a statue, whether he would played in a movie by Roberto De Niro and whether he was enjoying being on the front pages of the Italian sporting press.

But if the old rascal was basking in the limelight, he didn’t show it.

Ranieri spoke only of the ‘team’. Of the remarkable Leicester side that will line-up against West Ham on Sunday, all 11 of whom have started at least 24 of the club’s 33 Premier League games, and are currently seven points clear at the top – a story which has captured imaginations across the globe.

The Italian claimed all 11 deserve to be on the PFA Player of the Year shortlist – after Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante were named among six nominees for the prestigious gong.

Ranieri said: “I’m very proud because those three players deserve it. They are giving a fantastic performance in every match and I hope one of them can win. They are three sons for me. If one son wins I’m very happy.

“But all my players should be on the list. They are all my sons, they are sons for me and I would like all my sons there.

“Vardy, Mahrez and Kante are on the highlights and everyone watches them but I think their strength is the strength of the team.

“If you don’t have this team mentality and you are a lazy boy, you stay with me on the bench or the stand. 

This was my character when I was on the pitch and these players are the same as my character.”

When the individual questions came, the De Niro link was ‘just a joke’, a statue should only be carved ‘after I am dead’ and as for Leicester becoming the first foreign club to lead the front page of Italy’s Corriere Dello Sport, well Ranieri could only recall the times he’d been in the news for the wrong reasons.

Nonton Bioskop Online GRATIS  ~   In his previous job, Ranieri had been sacked by Greece after a humiliating defeat by the Faroe Islands.

And he said: “For me it’s a miracle that we are safe. Remember, in the first match they said Ranieri was the first to be sacked and Leicester were first to be relegated. I remember it well.

“It is good to be on the front pages but a lot of times I have been on the front of Italian newspapers and also on the front of the Greek newspapers!

“Greece wasn’t my lowest point, that was my second time at Valencia, because there I explained what will happen during the season and I said to the chairman ‘I will help you now. But after you must help me if the job goes wrong.’

“They said: ‘Yes, yes, yes, Claudio.’ But when I arrived at that moment - sack Claudio. They betrayed me.

“I’m the same manager now as then. And in Greece I worked only 15 days in four months. What can I do? I am not a magician. I’m a hard worker.”

But Ranieri claims nobody is convinced that Leicester will win the title.

The Italian said: “If you weren’t here in Leicester but somewhere else, maybe City, Chelsea or United, with seven points more than any other team, you would say ‘it is finished’.

“At this moment you don’t think this. Why? Because we are Leicester. So why would we be nervous now? We have to fight and smile because our job is done. We are safe.

“We’ve made a good story, but to achieve something you will remember in 30 or 40 years time, we have to win [the title].”