Ranieri eyeing Champions League for Roma before derby swansong

Claudio Ranieri faces his final Rome derby on Sunday as he leads Roma on a charge for the Champions League before finally, definitively sailing off into the distance.

Veteran coach Ranieri has dragged Roma to just four points behind Serie A’s top four positions since coming out of retirement in November, when his boyhood club looked to be heading towards the relegation zone.

This weekend’s clash with fellow Champions League chasers Lazio is a key moment in a tight battle for two spots in Europe’s elite club competition, with Inter Milan and Napoli out on their own contesting the Scudetto.

Roma are seventh, two points behind sixth-placed Lazio with seven matches remaining in the season, and have not lost a league fixture since their dismal defeat at Como in mid-December.

A 1-1 home draw with Juventus last weekend ended a seven-match winning streak, but the performance highlighted how far Roma has come since Ranieri became their third manager of the season after Daniele De Rossi and the disastrous, but mercifully short, reign of Ivan Juric.

Ranieri is set to step aside for a new coach in the summer but the 73-year-old’s success as stopgap has been such that he has faced frequent calls to further postpone his retirement for another season, something he insists he will not do.

After Roma’s draw with Juve, former Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon asked Ranieri why he would not reconsider, calling his insistence on stepping aside “absurd” given the turnaround he has mastered.

“Honestly, Gigi, I’d already quit last year… I said to myself that I’d only come back for Roma or Cagliari, and I prayed to God that I wouldn’t have to because it would have meant that they were going through hard times,” said Ranieri.

“I’ve been travelling around the world for more than 35 years, but I don’t know anything about it. I want to see what else there is beyond football before I die.

“Big Ben has said ‘stop’.”

 Top four tussle

Lazio will also have their tails up for the derby after their impressive win at former title contenders Atalanta which fired Marco Baroni’s team right back into the top four picture.

Roma’s local rivals are one of six teams, from third-placed Atalanta down to Fiorentina in eighth, separated by just six points and with a clutch of matches against one another in the final weeks of the campaign.

Lazio are two points behind in-form Bologna who sit fourth ahead of their own showdown with Atalanta, a team losing their way and at risk of not even reaching the Champions League.

Atalanta have lost their last three games without scoring a goal and have forgotten how to win at home, with their last domestic victory in Bergamo coming before Christmas, and are at risk of being overtaken by both Bologna and fifth-placed Juve.

Igor Tudor’s Juve and Fiorentina both have a chance to pounce as they respectively host relegation-threatened Lecce and Parma while their rivals face each other.

Meanwhile, Inter and Napoli continue their title battle with home fixtures against lowly Cagliari and Empoli, with three points the difference.

Inter comes into the weekend both on a high from their dramatic late win at Bayern Munich, but also with an eye on Wednesday’s second leg of their quarter-final with the Bundesliga giants.

Napoli have a far easier run-in than Inter with no commitments way from Serie A and seven matches against teams in the bottom half of the division.

Key stats

6 – Both the number of teams contesting the final two Champions League spots and the number of points separating them.

15 – Roma’s unbeaten run in Serie A, which stretches back to just before Christmas.

Fixtures (times GMT)

Friday

Udinese v AC Milan

Saturday

Venezia v Monza (1300), Inter Milan v Cagliari (1600), Juventus v Lecce (1845)

Sunday

Atalanta v Bologna (1030), Fiorentina v Parma, Verona v Genoa (1300), Como v Torino (1600), Lazio v Roma (1845)

Monday

Napoli v Empoli (1845)