Discarded from the elite and relegated to the helm of less prestigious clubs like Napoli and Everton, Carlo Ancelotti dusted off his image as an outdated coach by taking charge of Real Madrid, which he propelled from the season of his return to the top of the La Liga, before, perhaps, hoisting it to the final of the Champions League.
The Italian technician is a reflection of his players: age has no hold on him. At almost 63 years old, and with an aging workforce, Carlo Ancelotti has taken up the heavy torch left by Zinedine Zidane and has brilliantly won the bet of a return to Real Madrid, when no one believed in him.
Result: the one who thought “never to return to Real again” after being sacked in May 2015 became, eleven months after his return to the controls of the “White House”, the first coach in history to win the five major championships of European football.
“Football has changed. But coaches have to move with the times. I don’t see myself as an old coach. I see myself as a coach with experience, because I’ve been through all these changes,” he said. slipped Ancelotti Friday in a pre-match press conference.
– “Stay up to date” –
“The football of 20 years ago, when I lifted my first Champions League in 2003-2004 (with Milan, editor’s note), has changed compared to today’s football. The offside rule changed, you couldn’t pass the ball back to the goalkeeper, goalkeepers were less invested in possession… Football continues to evolve every day, and you have to stay up to date. ‘adapt every day’, detailed “Carletto”.
Whether in Milan (2004), Chelsea (2010), Paris (2013), Bayern (2017) or Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti has almost always been able to carry his teams to the supreme national crown. How ? Thanks to an ability to adapt above normal.
“When I was at Parma, I negotiated to sign Roberto Baggio. He told me he wanted to play as an attacking midfielder, but to do that I had to change my system to 4-4-2, so I told him said no. If he asked me the question again today, I would say to him: + But come on, obviously we are going to change the system +. After Parma, I went to Juventus, and there was Zidane. from there, I always adapted to the characteristics of the players”, explained Ancelotti to the former Merengue Jorge Valdano, on Movistar +, mid-April.
Recalled on June 1, 2021 by Real Madrid six years after his dismissal having sanctioned a first mandate below expectations (2013-2015), Ancelotti took over from Zidane, who had suffered from a break with certain leaders. And it is precisely for his good nature and his ability to create links that the Italian triumphed.
– “I feel loved” –
“Everyone tells me that if I’m here again, it’s thanks to Sergio Ramos’ goal (in the 2014 C1 final won 4-1 in Lisbon against Atlético Madrid, editor’s note). But training Real Madrid fills me with pride. It’s very special. I feel very loved, like in Milan,” Ancelotti told Valdano.
“I distinguish between a person and what they do. I always respect people enormously. But when I bench a player, it’s not for who he is, but what he does. . Sometimes they have a hard time understanding it,” he said again in Universo Valdano.
Flanked by his son Davide, his first assistant on the Merengue bench this season, the Reggiolese is one of the very best coaches in history, the first to have qualified for the last four of C1 in four different decades (1990 , 2000, 2010, 2020), the second to have won three C1 after Englishman Bob Paisley.
But if he beats Manchester City on Wednesday (9:00 p.m.) to reach the Champions League final, if he becomes the first coach to win four C1s, and if he leads Kylian Mbappé and Karim Benzema in the new Santiago stadium- Bernabéu next season, Carlo Ancelotti would settle, with a bang, in the pantheon of Real Madrid.
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