I’m going to systematically go through the 3 main points against Rano as captain (he’s not a leader, he doesn’t have enough quality, and he’s not old/experienced enough), and prove they are all bullshit. I'm sick and tired of this bullshit tirade against our captain.
1. He’s not a leader
Let’s make it very clear: Rano has a fucking difficult gig. He’s responsible for replacing one of the greatest captains in the history of football. All of the senatori that controlled the dressing room are gone. It’s essentially the Mourinho syndrome - i.e. when mourinho leaves, no one can measure up. That holds especially true for someone of Zanetti’s caliber.
In order to be a leader, other players need to respect you. How could Ranocchia have possibly asserted himself in a team with JZ, stank, matrix, Cordoba, lucio, cesar, cuchu, chivu, Samuel, milito in the dressing room?
Rano has only been captain for 2 months, yet in that time he’s become a leader with inter and certainly with the Italian nt. In nearly every game Conte has had with Italy, Rano has been a starter and Italy’s best defender by far - ahead of Chiellini, ddr, barzagli, bonucci, de sciglio, darmian…
Leadership comes with respect. If Rano wasn’t respected, how can the team look up to him when they’re used to THOSE players heading the dressing room?
And is leadership the only important quality in a captain?
Javier Zanetti was an exemplary captain. And yet for years his leadership was questioned by his teammates for being far too passive. It was Recoba who said that while Zanetti is a fantastic person, Inter needs a captain like Paolo Maldini.
JZ walked into the club in 1995 as Moratti’s first purchase alongside Rambert, Ince, and Roberto Carlos at quite possibly our lowest point. When Bergomi left in 1999, he was given the captaincy and rejected interest from RM and Barca. Watch Inter-Juve 2001 - zanetti was rano’s current age back then. And yet Blanc, zio’s replacement, was obviously the leader even if Zanetti was the captain.
It was Blanc who was shouting at his teammates to keep moving and stay motivated, giving orders to Cordoba, JZ (where to mark, play the ball etc), scoring the goal, celebrating like a madman and encouraging the players to keep fighting, running his fucken ass off at the age of 35, and keeping trezeguet + zidane in his pocket. Zanetti played well, as always, but he wasn't close as dominant a leader as “le president” - the nickname given to Blanc by Marseille’s fans as a tribute to his leadership skills.
When Inter were given unfair calls that favoured Juventus, it was Blanc and Di Biagio who passionately confronted the referee. Zanetti passively approached the official behind those two players, but he was pushed back and interrupted by Conte whenever he tried to say anything..
While Zanetti became a very vocal leader and a legend of football and Inter later in his career, he was not as assertive earlier on - and yet that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve the captaincy then. He deserved it over everyone else for two reasons - he bled black and blue on the pitch and he knew what Inter was all about more than anyone else.
What do I mean by that second point?
The reason why the player that has been in the team for the most time is given the armband is because it is assumed they understand the culture, fans, and history more than anyone else. The captain is the representative of the club to the tifosi from the squad. And that’s why Handa, ICardi, and Kovacic should not be captain, that’s why it would have been ridiculous to give Vidic the captaincy in his first year, that’s why it was only between Rano and Naga in the end.
didn’t JZ and bergomi publicly give their blessing to rano? Now those are two people that understand what Inter means more than anyone else…
2. He doesn’t have enough quality
Lets cut the shit - Rano has had a very inconsistent 4 years with us, plagued by injury and bad form. He has only showed why we paid 17 million for him in a half season in 2012. Other than that, his game has been plagued with lapses in concentration and fuckups. Even though he’s been good with Conte, he was also dreadful under Prandelli in Italian nt.
“le president”
This year, on the other hand, he has become one of the league’s most consistent defenders and our best defender by far - even though he was largely played out of position (as rcb). and yet no praise came on FIF when he was beasting for weeks while JJ and Vidic fucked up constantly, and after 1 bad tackle in a game vs a ukrainian team and a loss against roma (where he even received a very solid 6.0 from gazzetta, was our best defender, scored the goal to keep us in the game, and make a number of crucial tackles) - he’s shit and needs to be stripped of his captaincy… overreaction much?
Juan, Dodo, Mvila, Medel, and Campagnaro were worse than Ranocchia vs Roma, yet they didn't receive close to the amount of hate. Think about it this way: would anything have changed if we had fucking marquinhos or howedes instead of ranocchia? probably not. on the other hand, something would have definitely changed if we had lahm instead of campagnaro, or marquinhos instead of Juan Jesus...
Juan has been our most inconsistent defender this season. He’s been involved in an innumerable amount of fuckups and it was predictable our left flank would be exposed with dodo ahead of him as leftback. JJ is still young, yes, but he's not THAT young.
Lucio left brazil aged 23 and walked into a Leverkusen side challenging for UCL (lost to zidane’s RM in the final in his second year), bundes (lost the title by a single point on his first year). In 2002, aged 24, he started in brazil’s world cup winning team.
Thiago silva aged 23 was still in brazil with fluminense as captain after moving to Europe waaaay to early and riding porto and dynamo’s bench for a season. Samuel aged 23 was one of serie a’s best defenders in his second season with roma after winning the scudetto in his first. Ramos was starting with real as one of their vice captains aged 23 5 years ago. Chivu aged 23 was coming off his last season in ajax and his first with roma…
Bergomi waving goodbye to the “rano shouldn’t be captain” argument
There’s definitely still time for jj to improve, but his positioning is beyond shit. it will continue to haunt him for the rest of his career - though it will probably also get much better.
Lastly, let's briefly talk about Vidic, our highest paid squad member besides Guarin. the only reason he's getting so much dough is because he was expected to give us instant quality in our backline. Instead he’s become a liability, and in his absence others have risen to the challenge (namely andreolli).
It's beyond ridiculous that some say “other than his fuckups in like 1 minute of the game, vidic is a beast in the other 89 minutes so give him time”. Yeah, but that one minute has costed us points. It’s a risk we don’t have to take that isn’t worth the reward.
I also find it ridiculous others (no names, but you probably guess who) have the audacity to say Rano is shit and Vidic and Juan are much better, but “that still doesn’t mean andreolli should play over him”. Andreolli has without a doubt been better than both vidic and JJ this season because he’s been solid as fuck. If anyone should overtake rano in the lineup, it’s him.
Although if any two players should even be overtaken, it should be campagnaro and jj.
The arguments for Handanovic as our new captain are built around the fact he’s currently world class. Does that mean shit though? Is the best player necessarily the best captain? was picchi the best player in la grande inter? Was beppe baresi the best player in the scudetto winning side of 1989/1990?
Does handanovic know shit about Inter, the tifosi, our history? Even if we ignore that, has he shown any signs of being a leader like blanc or picchi? Doesn’t handanovic want to leave Inter if we don’t qualify for UCL? What kind of loyalty/captain material is that? On the other hand, I don’t see rano ever leaving us no matter who comes calling or where we are in the table…
And Handa wouldn't be a long term option either. It would be a short term fix to a non-existent problem.
3. He’s not old/experienced enough to be the captain.
Zanetti became captain aged 26, mazzola/picchi became captain aged 27, Bini became captain aged 23, Valentin Angelillo became captain aged 21…
And just because there was a trend for older players to have the armband in the past, doesn’t mean it’s right to happen again. For example, Quaresma is 30, and he's still a dickhead.
It's frankly absurd to have standards as to what a captain should and should not be. I can name you young captains, experienced captains, people who were at inter for a year and were then given the armband, people who were at inter for twenty years and were only given the armband for a single year, Italian captains, foreign captains…
FIF wants my head? Tell them to fuck off.
if I’ve missed anything, please add it to the list. if you disagree with this post, please respond. And lastly, I want to say it’s fucking disgusting some of you out there care more about being right than Inter or Rano doing well. The club and the forum are both better off without narcissistic fucks like you.
edit; you know what, fuck this shitty ass debate. I wrote such a fucking pointless article. Ranocchia is Inter's captain - period. no point bitching about it or even addressing the bitching going on.
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