Manchester City were the more coherent team but the white noise and white light of the Bernabéu was decisive in semi-finalWhen the moment came it seemed to strike Daniele Orsato like a surge of static energy. The referee had been phlegmatic at the Bernabéu. He shrugged. He jogged. But this place does something to you. As Karim Benzema fell, ankle tapped by a lunge from Rúben Dias, even before his body hit the turf Orsato’s arm was springing out from his side, ramrod straight, possessed with the voodoo of another of these absurd electrical storms, these nights of white noise, white light, where nothing is ever done until it’s done.Benzema stepped up and rolled the penalty kick into the empty...
Emotional and empathic manager galvanised a flawed team with an ageing midfield for a canter to La Liga crownThe season that ended early with Carlo Ancelotti becoming the only manager to win all five of Europe’s major leagues started with a phone call about something completely different. If this wasn’t exactly the way they had planned it, that’s because it was better. In late May last year Zinedine Zidane announced he was leaving Real Madrid, dropping a letter bomb as he went, and the sudden search for someone to replace him wasn’t going particularly well. Until one Saturday when, discussing other deals, they told Ancelotti as much, the conversation shifting from players to coaches, an idea forming. What about me?A...
The quiet Italian is a born winner set to become a champion in a fifth country – and he may even add a fourth European CupIn 2016 Bayern Munich faced a very difficult task. The club had to find a successor for Pep Guardiola. Only one came into consideration: Carlo Ancelotti. For us players this meant a change on the one hand. What Ancelotti said in one week, Guardiola said in three hours. On the other hand, as was the case for his predecessor, it was also true for Ancelotti: as a player you feel comfortable because you sense that the coach is ready to make his methods available to the team. That is why he is successful everywhere.In a...
Real Madrid’s manager knows it will be tough to beat Atlético on Sunday but the Italian is serene in his second spellHello again. The day that Carlo Ancelotti returned to Real Madrid, a chance conversation about something completely different unexpectedly bringing him back to Spain six years later, he looked around Valdebebas and saw familiar faces everywhere, comfort in the lack of change. “The same physios, the same kit men, the same journalists, the same vision, the same demands of greatness,” as he put it. “Everything is immutable: the only thing that changes is the coach.”It is there, anyway. Since he left, Madrid have been through five of them: Rafa Benítez, Zinedine Zidane, Julen Lopetegui, Santi Solari and Zidane again....
October’s bruising derby may have shaped champions’ season and Ancelotti is wary as Everton face wounded foes at AnfieldEverton should fear Liverpool. Their abysmal record in the Merseyside derby would suggest that is a given but, surprisingly, it was Carlo Ancelotti who called for Everton to approach Anfield with trepidation as he discussed overcoming the mental block that has contributed to the club’s failure to win there for 22 years or win any derby in any competition since Roy Hodgson managed Liverpool in 2010.“A derby is a special game,” said the veteran of local spats in Milan, Madrid and now Merseyside. “If you think it is a normal game then you are wrong. Special games bring more pressure, and sometimes...