When Claudio Ranieri accepted the Leicester City job last summer he was probably expecting that the night of April 20, 2004 wouldn’t feature heavily in the critics’ appraisals of his new team’s fortunes. He would certainly have been hoping so.
That was the night his Chelsea side capitulated to AS Monaco in that now infamous Champions League semi-final. It represented a personal catastrophe for the Italian, one that he will not need reminding of as he prepares to resume his affair with Europe’s premier competition.
At 1-1 in the Stade Louis II that night, with Hernan Crespo having notched a priceless away goal and his side well placed to land a thoroughly useful result to take back to Stamford Bridge, Ranieri made the first of what the BBC described as “a series of inexplicable substitutions,” which plunged his players into a state of confusion and chaos.