Ancelotti’s perfect year, the one that was on the boil

Charles Ancelotti he is the coach of the year. It shouldn’t be newsworthy. And yet, for someone he did it, and how. Ancelotti and victory know each other well. They have smelled each other since, about fifty years ago, when Carletto began playing in the Reggiolo youth team. Ancelotti and victory met for the first time on May 17, 1980, the day of the first cheer with Roma. An Italian Cup won on penalties with Turin, at 20 years old (shirt number 10 on his shoulders) he coldly scores the first. Ancelotti and the victory are divided in 2017. The forearms are exhausted after having lifted all kinds of trophy, the latest being a German Super Cup and a Meisterschale with Bayern. Goodbye is painful. It seems irreversible. The three years between Naples and Everton are accompanied by superficial judgments, ranging from the generous “it’s on sunset avenue” to the merciless “it’s boiled” by the harshest critics. Then it happens that in the summer of 2021 the call from Real Madrid arrives. A re-call, in reality, for the man who had debunked the curse of the tenth Champions League in 2014. That goal which had not been achieved for 12 years despite the efforts of Florentino Perez and, in part, of Ramon Calderon. Ancelotti and Real find themselves plastered. The coach hasn’t won for five years, Real are back from a season in which they were sensationally dry. They must have said “let’s try again together, whatever happens”. Result of the bet? The calendar year 2022 closes with a golden collection of Champions League, Liga, European Super Cup, Spanish Super Cup.

We meet Ancelotti in Valdebebas, the Ciudad del Real covering more than one million square metres, the largest sports center in the world.

So much for the finished coach, Carlo.

“It’s a special vintage that comes after a rather troubled period. My career was thought to be coming to an end. A unique season for how we won, especially in the Champions League. Spectacular comebacks, reversal of all predictions with a thousand difficulties to overcome. I consider this 2022 among the most special years that have happened to me in my life. Yes, exactly twelve months to remember”.

They say: “No es Fútbol, ​​es Real Madrid” so finishing first is almost a normal thing. Has the concept of enterprise ever existed in these parts?

“In fact, after the victory you never stop. You immediately think about the future: you lift the Champions League number 14 and they immediately tell you to think about the fifteenth. It is in the history and tradition of this club. Real Madrid is a football club, I repeat, a football club. Economy and finance are almost in the background. The sporty aspect is what matters most. And yet, the budgets have remained in order despite the demanding restructuring of the Santiago Bernabeu and the difficulties of the pandemic years during which all of football has suffered.

What did you say to president Florentino Perez in the most difficult moment of the season?

“There were two dramatic moments. The first, in four days between September and October, with the defeats in Europe against Sheriff Tiraspol and in Liga against Espanyol. I remember there were doubts about the value of the team. Then March with Barcelona’s humiliation in front of our fans: a 0-4 hard to forget. So I said to Florentino ‘Don’t worry, President, we’ll win both the Champions League and the championship’. Many times it’s done to gain time, to keep the “quiet environment. But he was convinced it could be done. Maybe he was the only one for whom it wasn’t a big surprise, in the end, to win both the league and the cup.”

900 days have passed between the exemption from Napoli and the triumph in the Champions League…

“It’s the story of football, it’s a good film because sometimes things don’t go your way. However, the experience in Naples was positive. I wanted to go back to Italy, I did it in a warm, passionate square. Everton was the same: it was a great adventure because we did important things like winning the Liverpool derby at Anfield after 22 years. When I was looking around, the call from Madrid comes as a surprise. An unexpected, unexpected return”.

In London, at the time of Chelsea, they called you “The diva whisperer”, the man capable of whispering to the champions, with that ability to deal with the stars that is your trademark. This year you spoke to stars (helping Benzema win the Ballon d’Or) and starlets (Vinicius has become a player who makes the difference).

“Benzema was a staple of this team. He did what I expected, even if for many there was the uncertainty of advanced age. The same goes for Modric and Kroos. For those like Vinicius, however, there was concern that they would be slow to explode. It simply happened that the veterans gave certainty to the youngsters and the latter brought energy and enthusiasm to the rest of the team”.

In Valdebebas there is an Italian enclave, it is Ancelotti’s work group. They call her the “Pequena Italia” and her son Davide stands out among the assistants. Together they are the protagonists of one of the most intense images of the sporting year. An iconic sequence. At the end of the semi-final with Manchester City opening the doors to the final, father and son embraced to tears. It was May 4 a few months ago. A year earlier, on the same day, Luisa, Carlo’s lifelong companion and Davide’s unforgettable mother, had left them. “Seeing that image again moves me, it was a special day for us, that hug represented something special, there was joy and emotion”.

Was there also David’s revenge after the many criticisms received? For many it was simply a recommendation.

“David doesn’t need rematches. He was appreciated everywhere he went: at Bayern Munich, at his first adventure at Real, in Naples. The history of the recommended is bullshit. Davide is a capable, serious coach, he is gaining a great deal of experience, he is very prepared and competent. He is from the young part of my group of assistants, made up only of Italians. The two who have the most experience are me and the athletic trainer Antonio Pintus, who arrived at Real after the Nerazzurri Scudetto with Conte”.

After the victory in the final against Liverpool you didn’t save yourself from parties.

“Yes, I sang, danced, posed with a cigar in my mouth together with my players. The curious thing is that after that snapshot I received a lot of cigars, but I don’t smoke them! In any case, everything I do is related to the relationship I have with the players. I don’t mean that we are always laughing and joking, on the contrary. The relationship I mean is between people who stay together all year round: it may happen that there are spaces for recreation and fun, but there are also moments of seriousness and pissed off”.

Why is the Champions League your home? You have won six, four as a player and two as a manager.

“Because my football history was built on the two teams that have the most tradition in the Champions League, Real Madrid and Milan. They are the two clubs that have characterized my career, Milan as a player and coach and Real Madrid only as a coach.”

Will Real Madrid be your last team or do you not rule out other adventures? In other words, don’t you still feel the time to give to your children and grandchildren rather than, say, going to train Brazil one day?

“No, I’m fine with the children, I’ve already given. I have already decided on the grandchildren that the time for them will be two hours a week, no more. I have Mariann, a beautiful wife, to whom I want to dedicate myself. I don’t know about stopping, certainly thinking about finding a better team after Real Madrid is hard. But, you never know…”

You have previously written a book years ago called “The Calm Leader”. The calm Leader par excellence in your story was your father Giuseppe, who worked from morning to night in the fields with the animals and you gave him a hand. Do you remember how he reacted when you told him you would leave that life of closeness, of help to give yourself completely to football?

“My dad was very happy when I went to Parma for the first time. The one who wasn’t happy was my mom. She was always afraid that I would get hurt. Be that as it may, I think the fact that I had a very peaceful childhood shaped my way of being. The character that I have and that I use in relationships with others was born from those years of my youth that I always remember with great pleasure, because I was lucky enough to grow up peacefully”.

Have you ever thought about the story that you, Arrigo Sacchi and Stefano Pioli were all fans, even very passionate, of Inter and then the Nerazzurri became your bitter enemy?

“Yes, it’s true! For me there is always, for what it was, the sympathy for Inter because it was the team of my childhood. From 6 to 15 I was an Inter fan and then, slowly, my ideas changed. Now I can say that I am a 100% AC Milan fan.”

Now comes 2023 and for Ancelotti, in a club that never gets tired of winning, the challenges start again: the final four of the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia in less than two weeks, a championship fighting for the title with Barcelona and above all Liverpool still on the road to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Against the Reds you missed the final at the Olimpico in Rome in 1984 as a player due to injury, suffered the shame of Istanbul in 2015, but the accounts were settled in 2017 in Athens and last May 28 in Paris.

“And I was searched by Liverpool before they chose Klopp! It’s business as usual, here only one result counts. Even in 2023. As a joke, a manager told me that a draw is the antechamber of the crisis. And then we know what we have to do: we hope to succeed again”.

For the Italia 1 program “The kings of football” (dedicated to Ancelotti, Pioli and Inzaghi, today at 13.50) we give him a crown. He tells us he’s never worn one and enjoys putting it on his head. We leave Valdebebas with the sentence of Carlos Carbajosa, the man of communication of the blancos. “Carlo is the perfect coach for Real”. You don’t need translations, but traditions. Traditions lost for a few seasons, renewed in 2022. Carlo Ancelotti is once again the coach of the year. For the history of football it is not news.