Will he stay or will he go? The Italian’s future is clouded in mixed messages despite being touted as the successor to TiteYou may have heard that Carlo Ancelotti will be the next manager of Brazil, at least if you have been listening to the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), anyway. If you have been listening to Ancelotti or Real Madrid, on the other hand, chances are you haven’t heard a thing. And that may be the most telling portrait of the way the pursuit of him has played out: no long-awaited announcement of his arrival. No arrival, either.On 5 July, the CBF president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, named the Italian as the Brazil coach from 2024. Since then there...
Another grim episode in Spain unfolded on Sunday night, but in confronting this, there is hope that it is inescapable nowThis Sunday, for the first time in 1,285 games as a coach and 47 years in football, Carlo Ancelotti refused to talk about the game. He had just seen Real Madrid lose 1-0 to Valencia but, standing in the cramped, narrow tunnel that leads to the Mestalla dressing room where he said his best player sat “angry and sad”, he didn’t care about that and couldn’t comprehend anyone else caring either. So when the standard post-match interview began with the standard post-match question, an enquiry as to his thoughts on another defeat, he decided that, actually, no, this wasn’t going...
Pep Guardiola’s side have the perfection of a finely executed military campaign, the perfection of wealth and strengthIt was at around 70 minutes, shortly after Toni Kroos had followed Luka Modric off the pitch, that the edges of the night began to sharpen a little and this Champions League semi-final took on a perfect clarity. Manchester City were going to win and Real Madrid were going to lose and no tweak or tactic, no switch or substitution, was going to change that fact.Real seemed to realise it too. Perhaps they were only 2-0 down but they were also bruised and broken, scarred and scared, tired of running into dead ends filled with blue shirts. Vinícius Junior had long since stopped...
Premier League champions showed progress with a mature display but must be wary against a team that are never done When Eduardo Camavinga picked up the ball at the start of the move that shifted this game and shaped the tie, setting up what promises to be a superb second leg next week, 34 minutes had gone and Manchester City, the team who had won 16 games in a row, were already over 3o0 passes. They had 72% of possession and 100% of the shots, 6 to 0. Thibaut Courtois had intervened four times, the best save from Rodrigo Hernández, taking his Champions League count to 26 from the last 26 shots he has faced. And the Frenchman was still...
Belgian midfielder has been on a roll since the World Cup and he produced something sublime in the Spanish capitalShortly after the post‑World Cup resumption Pep Guardiola made some comments about Kevin De Bruyne; sighing a little, looking sad, bemoaning by sly implication the physical state of his champion midfielder.As motivational obiter dicta go it was brutally effective. The Belgian has been sublime on the current winning run. This has been late imperial De Bruyne, a resurgent wave, buried a little behind the cold, hard numbers of Erling Haaland playing (and this is no coincidence) just ahead of him. Continue reading...