Formally announced as member of the “TAG Heuer family” in May this year, Claudio Ranieri was already well acquainted with the La Chaux-de-Fonds based brand, affirming, “I’ve had a vintage Moncao for around 15 years now, my wife bought it for me. Since then I’ve stayed close; I like to see their new watches and what their doing. And now I have the opportunity to be a part of it all.” The announcement followed his remarkable first year at Leicester City F.C., leading the team to Premier League victory one season after it was almost relegated out of the League altogether. When asked about the season, he says with a broad smile: “We won the title”, going on to confide, “it wasn’t easy, we started with a lot of pressure but slowly, slowy we improved and made a good result.”
His new role as brand ambassador coincides neatly with TAG becoming the Premier League’s first Official Timekeeper. Ranieri succinctly describes both partnerships as “good” (in person, Raineri is charmingly concise and to the point), he elaborates: “it’s a good link, for the first time I and also where I work are now both with TAG Heuer”.
As a part of its role as Offical Timekeeper, TAG has supplied Premier League match referees with its Connected watches, programmed with a dedicated “referee app”. What might initially seem as a marketing ploy, to the cynically minded, is in fact a useful and practical application of the Connected watch. “It helps connect the four referees and linesman, which is, of course, good. It’s also a good thing for the future, football is always getting faster and an easy connection between them is important” asserts Raineri. “For example”, he says recounting an anecdote involving a referee’s TAG Heuer Connected, “in one match recently, we scored twice without touching the net. I called over to the closest linesman for confirmation and he showed me “GOAL” on his watch, that’s good technology… technology in football is now very important.”
Despite a shaky start to this season’s Premier League, Ranieri and his team appear to be steadily getting back into the swing of things. Their 2016-2017 Champion’s League performance, however, has been very successful so far. With Leicester City making it to the ‘last-16’ knockout phase of the competition at the time of writing. The Club’s next match will see them face off against Middlesbrough F.C. in the Premier League this Saturday (the 26th of November).
